The Kite Runner

Writers and Readers Obligations toward Literature According to Mario Vargas Llosa’s “With Pens Drawn”

Ethics plays a huge role in the history of civilization, and literature is considered a reliable history of citizens of different classes of society. However, industrialization encourages people to escape the reality of intense work by seeking reality entertainment. Therefore, entertainment industries are growing rapidly and leaving ethics behind. How to balance literature to do its own ethical job and stay entertaining is the question that is discussed in MarioVargas Llosa’s “With Pens Drawn.” As he suggests writers as creators and readers as receptors need to take more ethical accountability for what they write and read.

Writing purposefully, raising a public voice, telling the truth and leaving room for active interpretations are the main essentials for writers. Creating literature out of words and playing with them in aesthetic ways is the beauty of literature. Thus, if writers use words purposefully, they can enhance the quality of their literary works. Literature has been the voice for ethnic groups throughout history. For example, “War and Peace”, “Poor Folks”, “Remembrance of ThingsPast" and dozens of other pieces of literature come from the “street”; they are the voice of the public that leads people to proper human behaviour. There is an unfortunate tendency toward sensual fantasy rather the real need to explore moral and ethical dilemmas in the industrialized world nowadays. Some writers think that the real needs of first world citizens have been taken care of. However, encouraging people toward “voyeurism” is contemptible in real literature. In reality, it is difficult for a writer to stand against the powerful entertainment industries. There are potential dangers for writers to lose jobs if they avoid writing just for sensual pleasure. But in the third word countries, writers lose their lives for telling the truth, which they see as their main task. For instance, Mario Vargas points out at Ken Saro-Wiwas’ execution in Nigeria; he was a committed novelist and wrote the truth. The developed world writers have to adopt the third worlds’ writers’ courage as Mario Vargas proposes. Entertainment industries are potential employers for writers. It is understandable, if writers do not want to do what these industries ask, they lose their jobs. However, losing jobs and being degraded to the level of the street class is the biggest life experience, which good writers need. It is the street experience that helps writers to raise the public voice, and enables them to engrave their names in the memory of real history. Allocating a free space for imagination, which is the main element of profound writing is lacking in the literature of industrialized countries, especially when a piece of writing is transformed into a movie or broadcast on TV. Vargas believes because there is no imagination involved in audio-visual, the information is not stuck in the reader’s memory for long. It is obvious the forgetting information does not change its reader’s behaviour. So, it is a writer’s job to free room for the reader’s active imagination.

It is not only writers, who are obligated to rescue literature from industrialization’s effects. Readers also should stop going to movie theatres all the time, and push themselves and their children toward active reading instead of watching TV. A movie makes millions of dollars, yet a well sold book does not. If a reader goes as deep as literature requires, they do not need to go to move theatres to pay for those industries that exploit writers to do anything they want. The movie industries disdainfully focus on their own prosperity and ignore literature’s real values. Active reading, which is a combination of reading, thinking and acting, is the most important aspect of successful education. Therefore, the new generation of youth and children need to learn how to perform active reading to have a better tomorrow than today. Spending time in front of TVs and computers jeopardizes the opportunities for reading and “free thinking” as Mario Vargas also believes. While reading there is a choice what to read, but with watching TV there are few choices for them to learn.