Books!

I just finished Mark Edmondson's book Why Read? and am reading David Denby's Great Books, about his returning to Columbia in later adulthood to experience reading and discussing the works he studied as an undergrad. All the while, I ask myself how I can translate what I'm learning from this reading to the high school classes I teach (English 9 and Creative Writing). These are the things I have the luxury to ponder during the summer, when not confronted with the daily realities of teaching. Are you buying this justification for my long summer vacations? I can hear the masses (masses? at this blog? okay then, the few) saying, "Wouldn't if be nice if we all had such time to reflect on the function and practice of our jobs?"
To that I say, " Yes! It would!"

Edmundson's book proposes that reading and a study of the humanities is especially important for those who find themselves living in a culture where they can't find a good fit for their sensibilities and have a vague idea that there's something more out there than the value systems their education, religious training, families, and early experiences have transmitted to them.

In many ways, I'm so Midwestern I reek of hard work, endless stretches of corn rows rustling in the August wind, and Lake Woebegone stoicism. And I'm proud of it. In many ways, I feel fortunate to have been raised in my family, in a little Midwestern town, with my particular set of experiences. But....I'm recalling the reader's history I wrote for my Teaching Lit professor, in which I described reading as a lifeline for a curious girl from a small Iowa town, a dedicated, short-on-cash young mother with a desire to know the world better, and then a forty-something college student with a love of learning and a dream to teach.

Edmunson's book takes a scholarly approach to the topic, but in this unscholarly blog I'd like to say that my experience proves he's right. Reading shaped me every bit as much as corn fields, Sunday school and motherhood, and continues to do so.

As for Denby's book about revisiting the discussions of texts he read as a student, if you've been reading this blog you know that should I ever hit the jackpot and free myself from having to earn a living, I will selfishly set out to do exactly that. Yes, he writes mostly (but not entirely) about reading the dead, white, male writers of the Western world who have shaped thought for centuries, and I mostly agree it's high time all the other thinkers had a crack at our minds. But I'd settle for Denby's experience any day, and for now, I'll do my usual thing: read about it.

A friend of mine knew someone who thought life mostly sucked, and the salvation in this miserable existence was knowing there are so many great books yet to be read. Between the two of us, when life went sour we'd laugh and say, "Thank god there's books!"

I'm pretty sure we were only half joking.