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.