I’d like, if you’ll allow me, to continue my trend of discussing obscure holidays: This week is “Banned Books Week.” Everyone, pick out whatever book you liked least in high school (for me, it was “Red Badge of Courage”) and write in to the President, and he’ll work on getting it banned for you!
Just kidding (though I really didn’t like that book).
One of my manifold methods of procrastination this semester has been to read for fun, rather than to do work for class. This reading-for-fun thing I’ve been doing appears to be a phenomenon among many of my college-age friends: No one seems to have time for it. This being the case, and in light of Banned Books Week, I thought I’d take it upon myself to regale you weary (and studious and responsible) folk with something you only dream of: reading books, not for class, but because you wish to.
I said above that I’ve been “reading for fun” recently, but that’s not entirely accurate — or it is accurate insofar as such a description conveys that I have been reading books I chose myself, books not required by a class. To me, though, saying I’m “reading for fun” diminishes the value of the act, as if pleasure were the only benefit reading provides. Not that pleasure can’t be an end in itself — and indeed I’m not sure reading “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” offers any tangible reward besides amusement (and of course the Meaning of Life).
I genuinely appreciate a story well told. But implicit in the concept of a story well told is the idea that, by the time I have finished reading the story, I have learned something worth knowing or am questioning something I was sure of before: that the story has taught me something about myself, my fellow human beings, the world around me, relationships, life, love, death …
In “Travels with My Aunt” (a hilarious book, if you enjoy dry humor), Graham Greene writes, “One’s life is more formed, I sometimes think, by books than by human beings: It is out of books one learns about love and pain at second hand. Even if we have the happy chance to fall in love, it is because we have been conditioned by what we have read … ”
Reading, in some ways, teaches us how to live — or at least shows us different ways of living and understanding life. We have to pick and choose for ourselves from those understandings.
But there’s a problem with this, as far as I can tell: Unless we have something against which to measure these understandings, how do we decide which ones we agree with? Hopefully this doesn’t cause problems for you, but I am quite easily influenced by outside forces: After having read “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” I want to learn about vehicle maintenance (and philosophy), and after watching “Vicky Christina Barcelona” (Yes I’m cheating; it’s a movie, not a book.), I wanted to run off to Spain and take a lover (but plane tickets are too expensive).
It is not only healthy but necessary to be aware of alternate understandings of life, and encountering such alternate understandings is one of the many benefits of reading. But just because one is presented with an idea doesn’t mean it is to be trusted, and against what standard, then, ought we to evaluate what we read and watch? Or should we? Does art have a moral responsibility? Do writers, actors and painters have a responsibility both to show life as they find it — ugly, messy, beautiful, valuable — but also to challenge themselves and you and me to reach for something more? Ought art and literature to do more than just titillate us?
My instinct is yes, but I’m not sure. Sorry if you wanted a solution. When I think about this, I always end up contenting myself with an observation from Dorothy Sayers’ novel “Gaudy Night.” The main character has been puzzling over some lines of poetry her friend wrote for her, and in the end Sayers reflected, “She went to bed thinking more about another person than about herself. This goes to prove that even minor poetry may have its uses.” I’m not sure this is the best answer, but it’ll have to do for now.
A happy thought with which to leave you: A week from now we will all be on Fall Break. Have fun on your vacations, and think of me, I’ll be home studying for the LSAT, which is on the Saturday of Fall Break. Awesome.
—Leigh Dickey is a senior in global studies and Latin. She can be reached at [email protected].
