Books and Ideas (33)

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

Underworld. Don DeLillo.
Why read it? Novel. When I worked as a K-12 language arts supervisor, I encountered a question from a parent that I did not answer satisfactorily. She asked me, “Why is all the literature we study in the secondary schools so depressing?” I gave her the standard answer of course: even when concerned with tragedy, literature affirms life. That answer did not satisfy her. Well, this novel is another in the “Depressing School of Literature.” And yet, it affirms life. It defines the people in the “Underworld,” the bottom of the social ladder, as depressed, helpless, hopeless and having no control of their lives. It’s an attitude that puts people in the dregs of society.
Quote: “The serenity of immense design is missing from her life.”

The Western Canon. Harold Bloom.
Why read it? Steve Jobs of Apple, Inc., is widely quoted as saying that “Nobody reads anymore.” That may be an exaggeration, but I think it is probably true that not many people read serious books anymore. And maybe never did except under duress in our schools and colleges. Bloom suggests that the goal in our schools and colleges today is no longer intellectual excellence, but achieving social harmony and remedying historical injustice. Bloom explores the problem of no longer reading serious books, the books enumerated in the Western Canon, “what has been preserved out of what has been written.”
Why do people read? According to Bloom, people don’t read for “easy pleasure or to expiate social guilt, but to enlarge a solitary existence.” “Real reading is a lonely activity and does not teach anyone to become a better citizen.” And I infer from Bloom’s remarks that reading the books of the Canon is a search for ideas, the purpose of this blog.
What is Bloom saying? Literature does not exist to alter individuals or society; that the Canon displays a complex view of humanity; that people read to enlarge their lonely existence by understanding the complexity of motivation and point of view in the world, but without didacticism and moralizing.
Quote: Samuel Johnson had a passion for consciousness; wanted more life right to the end of his life.”
Quote: “[Jane] Austen’s major heroines had an inner freedom that could not be repressed.”
Quote: “Whitman tried to live as if life were a perpetual morning.”
Quote: “What are now called ‘Departments of English’ will be renamed departments of ‘Cultural Studies’ where Batman comics…theme parks, television, movies and rock [and rap and text messaging? RayS] will replace Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and Wallace Stevens.”

What’s in a Word? Mario Pei.
Why read it? Many people love to read about words. They play daily word games in the newspaper. The stories of words and of the English language are fascinating. And books on words are just plain fun to read. Pei gives the reader a basic course in the history of the English language. He also deals with some fundamental issues: the nature of language, speech vs. writing and the role of grammar in learning language. Fascinating.
Quote: “But there is a deeper reason for preferring the cultivated language…. The same word…will carry the same meaning to all who use it…. This community of meaning leads to a community of understanding and a better possibility of effective collaboration.”
Quote: “It is an interesting fact that the critics of prescriptive grammar are its most faithful followers. They may advocate extending equality to substandard usages in theory, but they actively discriminate against them in practice.”
Quote: “Every word tells a story….”

The Writer’s Book. Helen Hull, Ed.
Why read it? An anthology of thoughts on writing—and reading—by a variety of writers. If you are interested in how real writers write, you will enjoy this book.
Quote. Pearl Buck: “People want to read about themselves, not the writer.”
Quote. Thomas Mann: “Everything great has come in spite of affliction, pain, poverty, destitution, bodily weakness, vice, passion and many other obstructions.”
Quote. John Hersey: “Novelists can make people feel as if they participated in the events of the novel.”