Among her other accomplishments, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is the author of the Count St. Germain series of vampire novels, which begins with Hotel Transylvania, a nominee for HWA Vampire Novel of the Century. The 25th (and newest) book in the series,Commedia della Morte, will be released this month. Chelsea has shared her insights into libraries and the research process in the past, and today, as part of the blog tour for Commedia della Morte, she’s got something to say about the the importance of literacy, in all its incarnations. Thank you, Chelsea, and good luck!

In Praise of the Written Word

When researching Blood Games many years ago, I found myself reading a fascinating book on graffiti throughout the Roman Empire; there was a lot of it. Most of it was fairly typical: Good fortune to Pulcheria, who has the greatest tits in the Lupanar; Marcus Flavius is a cheating pig; Greens forever; Arnax will beat Sepulins on Saturday’s Games; special at Antonius’ trattoria today and similar kinds of comments; a few were more pointed and political, but all of them provided significant insight into the attitudes and behavior of a large portion of the people of Rome. The examples in the book were an engaging collection, and more so because they were familiar — modern graffiti are much the same. Yet there are vast stretches of history that seem to be graffiti-less, and what little exists is pictures, not words. Which first and foremost tells you that in those times, most people could not read or write: graffiti is proof of a level of literacy that is not often encountered in many historical eras, or a great number of cultures. The Romans were unusual in that they encouraged reading and writing in almost all classes of society, and along with it, kept public records and documenting all manner of transactions, which makes researching their history and culture far easier than, say, researching everyday life in Moscow in the fifteenth century, or in the Amazon basin in 1920. Archaeologists discover ancient and often unknown cultures that remain largely a mystery due to the absence to some form of written language, starting with the presence or absence of graffiti.

Social continuity is contained in many aspects of the society, but the one that bestows the greatest continuity is written language, which allows the understanding of one generation to be built upon by subsequent ones, thereby retaining a reliable line between past and future, and keeping a link from the present to the future. If you want to put this to the test, read some of the theories about Egyptian hieroglyphics that were embraced before the Rosetta Stone was found and decoded, and then look at what we learned about that vanished civilization afterward. And yes, it was vanished in spite of some of the most spectacular monuments ever built, walls and walls of graffiti and bas-relief carvings, paintings in tombs, and papyrus scrolls. The written word revealed the ancient Egyptians to us as no pyramid or temple ever could, and it is through the written word that we have learned what all those tremendous artifacts were all about.

Of course, language changes over time, words mutate, new words come into use, old ones fade away, but where there is writing and reading, the culture remains coherent. As wonderful and revealing as folklore is, it does not offer the level of documentation written accounts do. Where literacy is rare, folklore flourishes, adapting over time to changing conditions among those who do not read or write, and although folklore provides context and sagas of all sorts, it does not allow the development of society through cumulative thought, be that thought academic, commercial, legal, entertaining, pragmatic, or aligned to any other endeavor.

When literacy is restricted, learning is compromised. When reading and writing are limited to one sector of society, information becomes the tool of that sector. Writing and reading provide opportunities for moving beyond the “what is” to the next step, and that next step emerges when thought is made lucid through writing and accessibility to others who read and write. So welcome graffiti: it means that language is active and that most of the society can read and write, can think for themselves, and know how to question what they see around them, and can pass all those things and many, many others on to those who come after us, as well as enriching our own lives.