Books and Ideas (17)

I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.

Silas Marner. George Eliot.
Novel. Why read it? To read Silas Marner is to experience a time in England when people knew only their villages and the surrounding countryside. No one living today can appreciate how provincial and limited was their outlook on life. Silas Marner is a wholesome novel that was characterized by a writer in the 1960’s craze for “relevance” as “that Silas Marner crap.” I never read the novel until after I had completed graduate school, expecting something in the nature of “Goody Two-Shoes,” and I was surprised by the delightful scenes of English village life. I should have known from having previously read Middlemarch that George Eliot would never write “crap.”

Some Good in the World: A Life of Purpose. Edward J. Piszek with Jake Morgan.
Why read it? This book, little known, perhaps outside of the Philadelphia, PA, area and possibly in Poland, is an American success story. James Michener: “This is a story that imparts exactly what makes America unique among nations, where any man or woman may start life with few advantages and then—through courage, brilliance, endurance, and hard work—achieve not only great material wealth but also turn that life into the greatest treasure of them all: a life willed with purpose.” Piszek made his wealth from selling frozen fish.

The Spectator, Volume One. Addison , Steele and Others. Ed. Gregory Smith.
Why read it? The Spectator essays were not sermons. They amused. They were short. They made fun of anything that was not common sense. They recommended good manners by making fun of awkward and clumsy manners. Everyone recognized the targets of their humor. The essays also commented thoughtfully on life.

The Spectator, Volume 2. Addison, Steele and Others. Ed. Gregory Smith.
Why read it? In a way, the Spectator papers/essays fulfilled the need for a “Dear Abby” of the 18th century. Unlike Abby’s plain statements, short sentences and familiar vocabulary, the sentences in the Spectator papers are sometimes convoluted and lengthy, and the vocabulary stretches the reader, but the purpose of the Spectator is similar to Abby’s, to resolve problems using common sense. The Spectator papers do a remarkable job of presenting that consistent point of view although Addison and Steele and several other authors originated the papers individually. Take away the name of the author, and the reader will be hard pressed to discern a different style. Addison is more intellectual and Steele is more humorous and the others more prosaic and less imaginative, but the point of view—common sense—remains consistent.

The Star Thrower. Loren Eiseley.
Why read it? Loren Eiseley is a remarkable essayist. A professional scientist, he was an artist with words. Unlike scientists who analyze and dissect to kill, Eiseley retained his understanding of the mystery of life. His essays usually begin with a brief anecdote and he then extends its implications to science and humanity. He is of the school that sees people as a part of nature and nature as one with people, not as people who dominate nature. And he sees evolution as promising that human beings will one day improve themselves through evolution, that human personality will improve to match the wonders of scientific findings. This book collects some of Eiseley’s thought-provoking, memorable essays. When you finish an essay by Loren Eiseley, you will not be finished because you cannot stop thinking about what he has said.