One of Novalis's dialogues begins
A. The catalogue from the book fair?
B. Still damp from the press.
A. What a mass of letters--what a monstrous birth of the times!
B. You appear to belong to the sect of Omarists, if I may call it after its most efficient adherent.
A. You really wish to be the eulogist of this epidemic of books?
B. Why the eulogist? But really I am pleased by the annual increase in the trade--the export brings only honor, the import sheer profit.
"B" gets the better arguments, and clearly speaks for Novalis, who after all was an author. "A" does get the specious argument that
A whole made up of sorry parts is itself sorry, or rather no whole. Now, if it were a thought-out progress? If every book filled a gap somewhere--and likewise every fair was a systematic part in a chain of learning? Then every fair would be an epoch, and finally there would arise in appropriate steps a complete path to the ideal education. A systematic catalog of that sort--how much slimmer in volume and heavier in weight!
Many of us have felt as much, but the desire for a systematic catalogue can hinder one. The reader who waits for a guarantee that the next book is the right book will miss a lot of interesting reading. I think that I did too much of that, holding off on reading book x because I had heard book y was better, and then finding some other excuse for not reading book y. It is better to take up the book and read, to the limits of one's interest and patience.
(I have read that Omar is wrongly blamed for destroying the contents of the great library of Alexandria: there is no sound evidence to say when they were lost.)
Teasing out your comment that "I think that I did too much of that, holding off on reading book x because I had heard book y was better, and then finding some other excuse for not reading book y." Is this because you feared being disappointed or because you feared wasting your time? Either way, they are valid reasons, but I think you are right that it's probably best to pick up the book and find out for yourself. A lesson that comes with age perhaps, which is strange in a way, because the older we get the less time we have for potentially wasteful reading. The thing is to decide that no reading, in a sense, is completely wasteful?
ReplyDeleteI think that it was mostly an excuse for idleness. Yes, we do have less time for reading.
DeleteThe younger Pliny quoted his uncle as saying that no book was totally worthless. Pliny the Elder never read--well, never mind the list. There have been books that I have read, mostly for a book club, that have left me with nothing but a long list of complaints. Still, who's to say that I'd have used the time better?
Haha, love the admission that it was mostly an excuse for idleness.
ReplyDeleteI also love that philosophy re spending time better - who is to say, as you say? Particularly, I think, when the discussion you have at book club might in fact have value? Indeed, might have more value sometimes than discussions about books you really liked? It depends of course on the quality of the discussion.
I agree that a book that is bad in the proper way might serve as the basis for a good discussion. I think that in our book club we tend to be too gentle with books for fear of offending those who have picked them. My wife's other book club chooses books by consensus, so the members feel less constraint in criticizing. In this one, though, the right of selection rotates.
DeleteI understand that fear. My group chooses by consensus too. I don't see much constraint in criticising, but if people love a book they will often ask who suggested it because even with consensus decision the book has to have been put forward by someone. If a book is loved that person is often thanked, but if a book is not liked the reverse doesn't happen. I pretty much never propose a book I've read. I see no point in that - I put forward books I want to read. So if a book I put forward is chosen and not liked, which has happened, I can feel disappointed but not offended.
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