I came home from work the other night to find my roommate deeply engrossed in Robert Ludlum's latest best-seller, The Asinine Tome. The frustration on his face was clear. He had spent three hours on this book already, but was only half-finished -- and his impatience was overwhelming.

He gave up trying to unsnarl the novel's intricate spy plot; instead, he picked up his well-soiled copy of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics and turned to Chapter 117: "How Can I Read Faster?" (Yesterday, he had learned how to gain self-confidence, cure cancer and earn a six-digit income, all in about half an hour).

My poor sap of a roommate is, indeed, a shining example of America's fondness for convenience and simplicity. He is a paragon of slothful literacy, society's most contagious trend.

Agnostics no longer need to waste precious hours engaging in inner soul searching to settle their doubts -- now they can just turn to the classified section of Mother Jones magazine, where they'll find "Proof Jesus fictional -- $4."

And written correspondence is certainly out of vogue. Lovers' spats now can be reconciled with dainty little Hallmark cards, expressly pre-printed with a heart-tugging apology, for those of us who aren't glib enough to put our confused feelings into words. "I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you. It's just that when two people are as close as you and I, . . ."

Oh, please.

My roommate -- that lovable urchin --could, logically, spend a quarter to mail a letter to his cousin in Toledo, recounting his weekend exploits.

Dear Chuck,

Saturday evening I drank in excess and engaged in amorous relations with a beautiful young woman whose name I have unfortunately forgotten.

Your cousin, Brett

But writing takes time, and some small effort. Instead, he'd rather pay the $7.50 long distance charges so he can spend 30 minutes gleefully repeating, "DUUUDE! No lie! Yeah, I got wasted, then I got slimed! DUUUDE!"

Sometimes I'm convinced that ours is the least literate society on the planet. The most intelligent magazine in any given supermarket checkout stand is that jewel among scandal sheets, People. And a friend of mine recently remarked, "Yeah, I like The New Yorker okay, but the articles are so long!"

This perverse logic implies that brevity is a necessary prerequisite for quality. In other words, Stephen King would suddenly be considered a brilliant writer if he were serialized in a weekly magazine. Wrong!

This summer I worked as a supermarket cashier. One day I glanced up at my customer -- a heavy, obstinate housewife --and noticed she was greedily clutching five trash tabloids under her broad expanse of arm.

I found this very sad, but I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she wanted to experiment with the various versions of "Ten Steps to a Thinner, Sexier You." Maybe she needed kindling for her backyard barbecue. But as she forked over the $8.25, she began trying to persuade some of the other people in the check-out line that Pia Zadora actually was a bionic transvestite from Pluto. I wept openly.

Maybe I shouldn't get so upset. After all, we crave leisure. And leisure, by definition, can include leisurely reading. But it wounds my sensitive tastes to see someone tackling a 600-page Danielle Steele sex epic, when there are a billion other better things to read: Herman Melville, Joyce Carol Oates, . . . The Washington Post, for pity's sake!

When we take the time to read a well-written book or magazine which challenges and enlightens and teaches us, then we have invested our time and energies wisely.

The value of good writing is that it stays with us, enhancing our art and culture. For instance, we still read Shakespeare. But a few centuries down the road, will anyone really remember how many pesky photographers met the furious wrath of Sean Penn's fist?

In a recurring nightmare I've had, I am trekking through Inferno with Dante and Virgil, and I lose my guides somewhere between Circle Two -- The Lustful -- and Circle Three --The Gluttonous. I soon discover, to my horror, that I'm lost in Circle Two and a half --The Semi-Literate.

Vicious, barking trolls and ogres pummel my head with rolled-up back issues of Cosmo, and I am condemned to live eternally inside a prison-cell newsstand stocked only with TV Guides and Harold Robbins novels.

My chilling screams go unheard . . . the spitting flames singe my hair and burn my face . . . apprentice demons prod me with tiny pitchforks, maniacally chanting, "Teen Beat, Teen Beat, . . .!"

Usually I wake up in a cold sweat, flick on the lamp and grab for the closest thing I can find with print on it. I need to appease my sudden fear that I've forgotten how to read.

Then I calm down, dig under a heap of my roommate's colorful, chart-happy USA Today's, and pull out my shiny new issue of The New Yorker. I smile snugly. I know I am safe from the far-reaching flames of American semi-literacy.