“A book, should be like an ice-axe breaking the frozen seas within”I think that, the ‘frozen seas’ that Franz Kafka speaks about is the depressing reality of a life where we are trapped, unable to move with the tides of thought. Paralyzed in the crest of frozen wave, unable to move onwards towards new knowledge, and outside the flow continues in an adventurous world beyond our wildest dreams, where we can let our imaginations roam free and supply our constant thirst for knowledge. A book should be an ice-axe that breaks us free from those frozen seas liberating us into the glorious outside world, taking us on many a new adventure. This is what books are like for me.
For me, J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series was what broke the frozen seas within. Even at the small age of seven the first book totally engulfed me, lighting a small spark in my brain that led to a new perspective of the world. Everywhere I went I was either watching around me for signs of magic among both strangers and friends, or wondering if I would get an invitation attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As I waited for the next book to come out, I ended up reading the ones before again and again and again, until finally I had read almost all the books about 7 or 8 times. Yet, I never got bored with them. There was always something that attracted me to the idea of going to Hogwarts. Those books gave me ideas for stories, and were mainly the source of my daydreams. Though I may get old, I will never grow weary of the adventures of Harry Potter.
I chose the above image as a visual for what the quote meant to me because it symbolizes the freedom of thought, where you cant be told what to think, where you can have your own opinion. As seen above a shackled thought bubble is breaking free of it’s chains allowing it to fly away. On May 10th, 1933 German students form universities that were thought of as the best in the world, gathered in Berlin and other German cities, to burn books that had or tried to put forth “Un-German” ideas. This meant that all the people knew, were what the Germans told them, they couldn’t give there own opinions and go against the Germans ideas because they didn’t have any other knowledge, they didn’t know any of the ideas that the books if they had not been burnt, would have given them. So they were in a way, deprived of the freedom of thought, just because they didn’t know any of the ideas the books had. That is why I chose the above picture, because books give you new knowledge, break your frozen seas within, and though we may not know it, give you freedom.
