Reading the Great Books and Living the Good Life (Part III)

     There are some people whose reading experience does not extend beyond the back of the breakfast cereal box, or the most recent issue of some popular magazine filled with more pictures than words. But for a citizen of the world, reading can be a sacred activity. The same tools that are developed when we read a great book can complement our study of the meaning of life.

     Many of us have seen the bumper sticker that affirms: "If You can Read This: Thank A Teacher." I've often thought we should have a bumper sticker that states: "If the Western World Can Read At All: Thank a Medieval Monk!" It was during the "Dark Ages" that countless monks copied by hand both scripture and other ancient writings, hoping to keep their important insights alive for future generations. They believed that they owed it to God and their fellow men to preserve the best of human culture. It was thus a small band of people with deep religious convictions and solid religious institutions who preserved literacy for the rest of us during a time of extraordinarily widespread social and cultural decline. It is them that we have to thank for our opportunity now to read some of the best books ever written.

     The lesson for us today is that, as we stand at the dawn of a new age, with increasing illiteracy and aliteracy (the phenomenon of people who can read but don't), we need to be a people familiar with great books. You don't have to be a monk, but you can participate in your own way in both preserving and passing on the best that has ever been thought and said. You can also benefit from it immensely. Reading great books is like looking through the highly reflective yet transparent glass of a two-way mirror. We can gaze through into a different world, or a different view of things, and we can also see something of ourselves, as we shift our vision from within the book to within our soul.

     I am convinced by my own experience, and the countless testimonies of multitudes, that reading the greatest of books can serve in a powerful way to provide us with lofty things to think and talk about with each other. No doubt, the reason some impoverished souls run around busying themselves with the superficial and trivial side of life is because they are not feeding their minds with anything greater. Their lives are so thin that, instead of reflecting inwardly, they direct their attention entirely outwardly, and gawk at anything that seems to glitter.

     I am equally confident that good people, reading good books in the right spirit can contribute to a more general living of the good life, and can assist us in making our contribution to the good society. Books can deepen us and they can broaden us. They can give us clues into the darkest recesses, and highest potential, of human behavior. And they can suggest new ways of living and working together that can improve the quality of our daily experience right away.

     After even a few minutes of reflecting on the importance of books in our lives, and then writing a short essay in praise of reading like this, I just want to go, grab a book off the shelf, sit in my recliner, turn on the reading lamp, and depart for a while. After a bit of reflection in your own heart, you may want to go pay a visit to your local bookstore, thank the owner for what they make available, or find that old library card and go use it. You also might be moved to feel a bit of gratitude that you have both the power and opportunity to read words that can bring pleasure and also expand the human soul.

Reading the Great Books and Living the Good Life (Part II)

     I grew up in an "unbookish" home. What few books that happened to be on shelves gathered dust, not readers.  My wife and I are extremely bookish, almost to a fault. Because of all these trips to the bookstore, there are books in every room of our house. I suppose that, like anything else, even buying books or reading in excess could be a bad thing. At least, in theory this may be possible. Of course, I would find it very hard to confess this to be a real wrongdoing.

     The American novelist Walker Percy once suggested that the greatest interest we can develop within our children is an interest in reading. Percy¹s thinking was simple. The ability to read, in additional to the gifts of books themselves, is a treasure that keeps giving throughout a person's life. The ancient philosopher Cicero once remarked that "A room without books is like a mind without thoughts." We could by extension infer that a mind that has not been shaped by great books is like a dusty, bare shelf.

     With all due respect to the human race as a whole, I have found a few books far greater company than some people I've met over the years. Many great books have a depth and breadth that too many people seem to lack. For those of us who love books, we don't see them as mere artifacts of paper on a shelf. We come to see some of them as dear friends.

     Maybe the Scottish novelist, George MacDonald said it best when he once recounted what it felt like to return to his study: "The familiar faces of my books welcome me. I threw myself into my reading chair and gazed around me with pleasure. All my old friends present there in spirit, ready to talk with me any moment when I was in the mood, making no claim upon my attention when I was not."

     I wish for us all that we will come to have more friends in the world of books and find ourselves more frequently than ever "in the mood" for what they can give us. What we learn as a result can position us better for the truly good life we all want to live.

     Despite recent screeds about the precipitous decline of American culture, and what we are told is daily diminishing literacy, there are some signs that we live in an age that loves books and reading. We're always hearing about the New York Times Bestseller list, and the spectacular phenomenon of Oprah's Book Club. Harry Potter is still the biggest kids' literary star ever, and so far, he is to be found only in the pages of books - and very long ones at that. Books are still being printed, sold and read at a high rate, and even many of our most popular movies are based on good books. A short trip to the local mega-bookstore seems to confirm the view that we are in a time where books are still treasured by many. People aren't only in these bookstores for the comfortable chairs and the coffee bars, although they do make for a nice, welcoming environment. They are there for the books. For every person on the beach with a radio blasting, there is someone a safe distance away reading a fat, paperback novel. And look around on airplanes. It's amazing how well books are surviving the age of the ereader. Yes, many of us do seem to love books.

     But there were other places and times that loved books more. One telling example of extreme bibliophilia is conveyed well by an event in the life of the brilliant Renaissance Christian Humanist Desiderius Erasmus. It is told that he once came across a fragment of paper, apparently torn from a book, stuck insome mud on the street. He proceeded to stand there for a lengthy period of time, both contemplating the contents of the page and feeling distressed that such a thing as this could have happened in the first place. We should remember that this is the same man who wrote, "When I get a little money, I buy books; and if there is any left I buy food and clothes."

     In my experience as an adult I've heard some people loudly declare, in what seemed to be a voice of haughty hubris, "Well I just don't read anything." I'm reminded of the insight once conveyed by C.S. Lewis when he wrote, "If you attempted to suspend your whole intellectual and aesthetic activity, you would only succeed in substituting a worse cultural life for a better. You are not, in fact, going to read nothing if you don't read good books, you will read bad ones. If you reject aesthetic satisfactions, you will fall into sensual satisfactions."

     I know one "successful" executive who glibly states that he hasn't read a book in twenty years. Trust me, twenty minutes of conversation with him will confirm this to be true. In some ways, he is considered rich, but in other respects, his life is terribly impoverished.

It is not by accident that the terms 'literate', 'literature', 'library', 'liberate', and 'leisure' are all cousins in the history of words. Many people living today are intellectual and spiritual slaves to the present moment because they have not allowed themselves to be liberated by the pleasures and insights of some of the best books written by the greatest minds in human history.

Reading The Great Books and Living the Good Life (Part I)

     It might seem like an unusual request when death is looming, but it is recorded that the brilliant Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy, several hours before his death, asked his assistant to bring him a number of books. He requested the Bible, The Works of Shakespeare, and the last edition of his own book entitled, The Circle of Reading.

     What does it say about Tolstoy, that books were on his mind at the obvious end of his physical life? It certainly indicates that reading was a central part of his life long before the end. For those of us who love books, this is really not so odd a solicitation. This request at the very end of life makes perfect sense to many of us.

     Let me just say it in the clearest terms: I love books. I love reading. I enjoy books so much that I actually have a few books on my shelves that are about books. I even own a few books that are about reading books. I ask for your forgiveness in advance of any excessive or extreme comments in this little multi-part blog about reading. I begin with the up front confession that I am a "bibliophile," which means "lover of books." If you suffer from this mental order, you will identify a great deal with what I'll be saying. But if you consider it even possible that reading is a waste of time, I'm glad you weren't deterred by my title here, and are still with me. While I cannot identify with the person who is not passionate about reading, I can understand it. Reading, like most other inclinations of the soul, is an acquired taste.

     Years ago, I remember reading that, tragically, some people are born without taste-buds, or the ability to taste various flavors. Many of us with normal palates never eat enough of the right foods to develop a refined sense of taste discrimination. The same is true of reading great books and reading them well.

     Personally, my mental appetite is so immense that I rarely leave the house without a book. If I do, it's all right because there are always some books in my glove compartment or in the trunk. Sometimes in very long lines (when others are getting impatient and disgruntled) I'll open the book in my hand and make my way through a few paragraphs. I also read with a pencil in hand. You never know when you are going to read something that you'll need to track down later.

     If you belonged to a Book of the Month Club, and not only bought a selection every month, but actually read it as well, in fifty years of adult life, you'd read through six hundred books. That initially may seem like a lot, but it is a small fraction of the number of new books that are published each year, and it is an extraordinarily tiny percentage of the potentially truly good and useful books that have ever been written. At even that pace, would you find the books that might make the most difference in your life? The saddest truth is that most people don't even come near that modest pace of reading. It's quite sobering for a bibliophile to realize that many Americans will live fifty years or more of adulthood and not even read a great book for each year of life given to them as a gift. An average person may mentally consume over a hundred thousand hours of television and radio instead! Why expose ourselves so extensively to intellectual cotton candy, while missing the nurturing resources of true genius and masterly insight?

     We bibliophiles are endlessly frustrated that we can't read more books in our lifetimes. But we really shouldn't fret about matters of quantity. Reading great books is like eating a great meal. There are some things you want to enjoy slowly. In a great book, the words, ideas, and experience need time to echo in your mind and soul. With books, it's really better to be a gourmet than just a gourmand. A few great ones will benefit us much more than many average ones.

     Great books can support and parallel many aspects of the cultivated life. It could be easy to make the case that reading a good novel that is several hundred pages in length can itself, as an act, and regardless of the book, help cultivate the virtue of patience. But so can sitting in the waiting room of a doctor's office, or standing in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. So maybe I shouldn't pursue that point any further. The real benefits of reading flow out of the content. Encountering various virtues and vices in the lives of fictional characters can help us powerfully to refine our own development of virtues and avoidance of vices. Seeing the behaviors, and being privy to the thoughts, of characters in books can deepen our own understanding of human nature. Great descriptive writing can make us more sensitive to the details of our experience, and the beauties of our surroundings.