An Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi

Madame Speaker,

I am the owner of Mad About Books (www.madaboutbooksonline.com), a used bookshop in Oglesby, Illinois. My business has been clobbered by lackluster sales and choked credit, and could go under before year's end. Such a collapse would be a severe blow to our local economy -- and to the view of the nation's economic strength -- and deal a crippling blow to the ability of many Americans to afford quality books for education and pleasure in these trying financial times. In addition, the loss of our online international sales will further undermine an already unstable world economy, and the export of American ideals.

In order to prevent the failure of my business, I would like Congress and the Bush Administration to take action to provide immediate, targeted assistance to allow my business time to develop a plan to assure its long-term viability. I understand such emergency assistance would be conditioned on compensation restrictions, a prohibition on golden parachutes, rigorous independent oversight, and other taxpayer protections to ensure that my company -- and not the taxpayers -- bears the full burden of repaying any costs that are incurred.

I am sure you will agree that books will continue to play a crucial role in the expansion of our nation's knowledge, culture, and leisure, at home and in the global marketplace. I am willing to work with Congress to meet all conditions, and provide a plan for long-term viability and competitiveness, in order to receive short-term assistance through the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) recently authorized by Congress.

Thank you.

It Takes a Village to Raise an Idiot

I remember the formative years of my childhood. I learned so much from my father. I worked with him in the yard. He taught me how to paint. We washed and waxed cars together. He took me to his jobs, where first I could only watch, but later could assist. He taught me how to drive a car.

Our time together was not all spent in work, though. He taught me billiards. We played catch together. He took me golfing. On sunny afternoons we swam in the pool together. He taught me how to ride a bicycle and roller skate. And, of course, he took me to my first major league baseball game.

He constructed an electric train set for me. He built an orange crate scooter for me. He took me to Cape Canaveral, Disney World, the World's Fair, sites of American history, the zoo, and the ice cream parlor. I acquired from him an appreciation for Big Band music, old movies, and redheads. Needless to say, he clothed, fed, and sheltered me.

Some things he just didn't do. He didn't ask the neighbors to supervise me. He never expected them to pick up my toys. I wasn't left after school to the care of the television. I wasn't allowed to venture beyond the sight of my house. He never raised his voice or his hand to me. And there was never a time that he didn't know where I was.

When I grew older, he gave me advice. He bought me my first car, and later we bought an antique car together. We became golf partners. I knew that no matter where either of us were, or whatever our circumstances, he always kept one eye on me, ever alert to my well-being. And one day our roles even reversed, when I taught him how to use a computer.

Maybe the most important thing about my father was I could go to him if I needed comfort, or assistance, or rescue, or when I experienced one of childhood's inevitable cataclysmic disappointments. He would answer my questions with understanding. He would teach me with patience. Perhaps without even knowing, he was a role model for me. And I always knew where I could find him. And it was never in the neighbor's garage drinking beer.

The Celebration of Christ, or When in Rome

Welcome to Good Friday.

We just finished two outstanding books about early Christianity. The first, called The Magdalene Legacy by Laurence Gardner, meticulously detailed the development of the Christian faith, from before the time of its central figurehead up to the time it was adopted as the official religion of Rome. If you want to know why a certain rite is performed today, or how the canonical Gospel of Mark differs from the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, or how to reconcile the various contradictions in the New Testament, this is the book for you. The second, called Jesus and the Goddess by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, exposes the similarities between Jesus Christ and the dying-and-resurrecting gods of every other ancient culture. If you want to decode the earliest religious texts and learn the mystery that formed the foundation of the modern Christian faiths, this is the book for you.

We were utterly convinced by the first book, which accepted, argued, and explained the historical facts of the nascent church, including everything in the New Testament. Then we were utterly convinced by the second book, which accepted, argued, and explained the myths that revealed the secret mysteries of the nascent church, including everything in the New Testament. Finally we realised that anyone with enough time and resources could find supporting texts for almost any theory they proposed. The unknowable and undeniable truth of that past time is almost certainly to be found somewhere in the middle of those two positions, taking parts of each.

Today is an important day for people of the Christian faiths, the day several years ago when God decided it would be a good thing to crucify His only Son. These events are reenacted all over the world, in some cases with the full compliment of brutality. Church-appointed leaders will speak to millions of people and tell them what it all means, why it all matters. Believers will kneel prayerfully before a cross, perform certain rites of commemoration, celebrate the triumph of Jehovah and His Son.

A few thousand years ago Rome ruled the western world. Most citizens of the empire did not recognize any monotheistic, revealed religion. There was a whole pantheon of gods who were worshipped and believed to play an active part in people's lives. Romans daily honoroued, celebrated, and sacrificed to their gods. They carried charms and amulets, said prayers, and generally tried to propitiate their gods. Today scholars have clearly identified cults of Jupiter, legends of Marius, superstitions of Robigo, and myths of Mithras, to name just a few of the popular beliefs. There was even a national day of prayer to the goddess Salus.

That modern civilization is far more sophisticated in its belief systems is a fallacy. Today television stations are showing choirs singing praise to a convicted criminal. Big box retailers are selling chocolate bunnies and plastic eggs at a discounted price. Income at the florist shops is blooming. Half the banking institutions are closed, or all of them are half-closed. Schoolchildren are on holiday. Many businesses have either given employees the day off, or granted employees the day off. There is a noticeably fishy smell in the air. Indeed, if Jesus were to appear today, a jury of his peers would find he had a rough childhood, he was abandoned by his parents, everyone made fun of him, and so would pronounce him not guilty by reason of insanity. The Resurrection would have to be canceled.

In ancient times, Jerusalem was located prominently in the center of every map of the known world. But the world no longer revolves around the city and the religions that sprung from it. Grant for one moment the possibility that the Christian faiths--indeed all faiths--are based on myth: we are suddenly painfully aware how like the Romans we really are. When we laugh at their silly beliefs, we laugh at ourselves, we laugh at all of mankind. The sole cause of the perceived difference between them and us, then and now, is hubris. Christians know their God is the one and only God, and warn us that if we don't believe and obey this God, we will be welcomed in hell.

We are secure in the belief God favors the humble, the meek, the pure of heart.

Disposables, or Throwing It All Away

We have in our hands an encyclopedia from 1909 which has an article about flying machines. The encyclopedia has been constantly updated and revised, so within a few decades the bulk of that original material on flying machines has been replaced. And if the encyclopedias themselves have been replaced and destroyed, then that knowledge is lost.

Perhaps a book on flying machines has not been checked out from the local library for over ten years. At the same time the library's patrons are demanding more copies of Tuesdays With Morrie. The library decides to remove the books that have not been checked out in some time, to make room for the books in demand. And perhaps the government won't let the library give these books away without lots of red tape, or a threat to the future budget. The library simply tosses the books in the dumpster. Gone forever is the earliest, detailed, first-hand history of flying machines.

This may seem an extreme example, but it occurs all over the world. John Warnock, the father of Adobe Systems, owns a 1543 edition of Copernicus' De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium. This is not simply an artifact to him, he has read the work and was amazed by Copernicus.

His argument for the earth's rotating around the sun, considering the tools he had and the observations he made, was absolutely compelling. He did it masterfully. In a modern textbook, you don't get that. You get, "Copernicus suggested that the planets rotate around the sun."

Even if the pure knowledge Copernicus possessed is no longer of use, even if his tools are long outdated, we can still learn something that seems to be diminishing in our modern society: critical thinking. Knowledge only of the end result will prevent a child from following the process of discovery, from replicating the experiments, from learning, not about the world itself, but how to think about the world.

The ancient Egyptians possessed knowledge which is no longer with us. So did the Mayans, and probably any other lost civilization. What could we do with that knowledge? How would that knowledge affect our way of living? Adaptation to change has made man the most successful animal on the planet. If we continue to dispose of knowledge that no longer seems useful, will changes present ever greater challenges? Might we regress and have to start over, as surely as those who succeeded the Egyptians and Mayans did? Fantastical as it may seem to us now, could a Planet of the Apes scenario threaten our future?

Sacred Sunday Mornings, or Waking Up With Proust

One of the reasons we so look forward to Sunday is the quiet of the early morning. We are conditioned to wake before dawn, and with no other commitments on this day we can indulge those unsullied hours in reading Proust. Much of our reading time occurs in the evening, in bed before falling asleep. Inevitably we can read but two or three pages before drifting off. In such a short span it is difficult to really appreciate Proust. In those two pages he might have described only one small thing, like meeting an old friend on the street. To get a strong feel for the fullness of his work, one is best to consume much larger chunks at one sitting. Ninety minutes and thirty pages pass as if in an instant, and we are immersed in his world. And then, though we must rise and deal with feeding dogs and cleaning bathrooms and plotting acts of anarchy, we know there exists in life a privileged moment by which we may be exalted, if only we should take note--like sacred Sunday mornings.

A Literary Event, or the Festival of the Book

There is such a diverse community of literary bloggers and readers of litblogs, we thought we would put to you some questions concerning one of the ideas spawned in the scintillating Chapter One Hundred Four.

Though more book sales are occuring through the internet (and some predict a further doubling within the next five years), established book festivals still draw tens and hundreds of thousands of visitors. These are usually considered high-end affairs, and geared more toward the collector than the consumer. But they involve more than just the purchase of rare and antiquarian books, and this is how they trump the internet.

For all the hype surrounding the internet as a tool which helps bring people together and form a community, by its very nature there is a disconnect and isolation. Book festivals bring book-fanciers together to share a love of all things literary. They allow one to form a network of friends, colleagues, and connections, to bond. Just as there is a profound difference between the experience of reading a book in hand and reading one on the computer screen, so is there a difference between meeting someone through an electronic greeting and actually shaking someone's hand. Readers seem to love this sort of thing, as they turn out in droves to meet their favorite authors face to face, to get to know the person behind the words. Collectors distribute their want lists to hundreds of dealers quickly and easily. And dealers get a better feel for the market and the trends, and put their best book forward. Quite simply, a book festival is an event, like the World Series, or a traveling circus, The Ring cycle, or an art exhibition, something which the internet has yet to replicate.

So to the questions: If you have attended a book festival, what are the top three things you went for, to meet that special author, and perhaps have a book signed; to hunt through a huge selection of books for the elusive quarry; to hear a talk given by a publisher or writer; just to hang around with other book-fanciers; or something completely different? What three things are offered at a book festival that you could do without? The ubiquitous coffee bar, perhaps? And what three things do you wish were offered but aren't?

Interview From the Reading Room

Litlove is a lecturer in French literature whose blog, Tales From the Reading Room, explores the strange and beautiful links between life and art. Now she has taken a bold step outside the insular room with the publication of her first book, The Best of Tales From the Reading Room. Though a collection of essays that one may have already read on her blog, there is a tactile satisfaction reading a book which one holds in one’s hand that doesn’t exist when reading from a computer screen. And there is some connective tissue between the essays gathered in the book that forms an outline of the author that is more apparent than on the blog.

Recently, we were privileged to join Litlove in her Reading Room, and in front of the fire with a strong pot of tea we probed her to fill in those outlines. Here she comments on modern culture, the nature of fantasies, the blogger’s connection to Surrealists, and why her popular literary salon may soon be moving to southern France. She does go on a bit, but with enough good will you can almost see that as charming in its way. Enjoy!

First of all, is the Reading Room a real place, and can you describe it for us?

The Reading Room is so lined and insulated with books that even the door is disguised as a bookcase. It contains a sofa of supreme comfiness on which I lie, and a fire that blazes at night or on winter days. In the summertime its one picture window looks over a gently sloping Swiss meadow. It doesn’t have an external reality, but as the place I go to in my head when I’m mentally preparing myself for research or writing, it feels more necessary than any of my actual rooms.

You describe becoming a writer, and explain part of your process as taking the text inside of you and listening "to all it couldn't or wouldn't say." Please describe this further, and share how this act in particular helped you to write.

Just recently I read Kate Sutherland’s collection of short stories, All In Together Girls, and as I was making my way through them I realized that there were structural similarities that weren’t immediately obvious from the content. And so I watched my own internal reactions closer and found myself wincing, time and again, and I thought, ‘this writer is fascinated by vulnerability’. It’s hard to explain, but as a younger literary critic I kept too much distance from what I read, and so I just brought my own expectations to bear on stories. Once I’d learned to pay better attention to what happened to that story when it was inside me, I felt I was doing more justice to it, to its own unique character. There’s a huge temptation as a critic to try to be clever with what you read, and I just wanted to be truthful to the heart of the fiction.

You write about two inviolable regulations in fiction: bad mothers are unforgivable and loved husbands are untouchable. These seem more like the response of readers than the intention of writers. Tell us how deeply these ideas are ingrained in our culture.

I wouldn’t want to impose on culture at large a neat axiom that might just belong in my own warped mind, but bad mothers get a terrible press across the ages; we can forgive Emma Bovary all her sexual and financial excesses, but not her neglect of little Berthe, just as the media insist that no matter how she suffers, we must condemn Britney Spears for her perceived inability to nurture her sons. As for loved husbands, it seems to me that the love of a good woman is so redemptive in the masculine imagination that it frequently exerts the protective charm of a talisman. But that’s probably showing up the limits of my reading; I’ll bet there are male protagonists in works by 19th century Russian novelists who fulfill their death wish, regardless.

You suggest that "men fear that they will lead only muffled lives." What connections do you make to the modern cults of celebrity and voyeurism?

Good question. I remember about fifteen or so years ago the ‘docu-soap’ filled our television schedules. It’s premise was to take an ordinary workplace that could nevertheless produce anecdotal interest, like an airport or a driving school, and followed the lives of ‘normal’ people under pressure at work. I think that was the start of a trend to glamourise the everyday and bring celebrity to ordinary folk. It always struck me as a bit regressive, like the way that children are precociously aware of themselves acting in their own internal cinema. It also said, no matter who you are, you can be famous. That trend has gone completely over the top now; I keep waiting for something else to come and replace it, but it’s remarkably tenacious.

You describe a crush you once had on the writer Julian Barnes, and your inability to pick him up at his own book signing. I think fiction is at its best when it explores everything that otherwise cannot be. So tell us the story of Julian Barnes coming to pick you up at your first signing of The Best of Tales From the Reading Room.

It’s best I don’t say how long I’ve spent thinking about this question! First of all we’re so deep in fantasy that this could be science fiction, but anyhow. The only scenario that actually works in my mind is where he comes up to me and says: ‘I’ve been wondering why your face is familiar and aren’t you the woman who bored me rigid at that literary reading in Highgate back in 1993?’ This really brings back the experience of fiction writing, where I could only ever write failed encounters. Still, with a big effort I can imagine us having a laugh making up reviews of our books by famous authors (Flaubert: ‘Litlove, c’est moi’, Sartre: ‘This woman has some interesting ideas but they are spoiled by her essentially foolish disposition’) and as we’re busy talking, so we leave the bookshop behind, and find a taxi and then a train station, and hardly perceiving the changing landscape, we contrive to end up in the South of France. If this all sounds lame, it’s because in love I’m captivated when the other person surprises me, and in writing, I’m much better at analysis.

What happened to your thesis on Mr. Barnes?

It went the way of all beautiful and much-wanted dreams, in that translating it into reality altered it beyond all recognition. I do wonder what my life would have been if I had moved into an English department, but for better or for worse I will always be a European modernist now.

What happened to your crush?

It ended up as a kind of literary marriage. I have a deep, residual loving appreciation of Julian Barnes, so that when I read a book like Love, Etc, I think, Julian, you are such a delight to my intellect you still occupy a privileged place in my heart. But it’s tempered by the distance of a little cautious criticism, so I read Arthur and George and think, you had my undivided attention for the best part of twenty hours and this was the best you could think of to do with it?

I see in your inability to pick up Mr. Barnes when given the opportunity a streak of Romanticism. I see glimpses of this throughout your book, in particular when you describe your whole-hearted acceptance of "the vision of life peddled by The Thorn Birds." Do you think the Romantic outlook is endemic to readers of fiction?

You have no idea of the civil warfare that rages in my soul between my Romantic leanings and my analytical capacities. Literature is the only place where I can comfortably deal with them both at once. The classic Romantic is someone who wants to joy-ride with their soul, who wants to explore their emotions to the limit-point. I think if you love stories, you have to have a little bit of that, because voracious reading is about greedily hoovering up all the virtual experiences you can have.

You write that the books we like reflect the qualities of our best selves. What book reflects the qualities of your best self?

Proust. The marriage of analysis with transitory experience for the benefit of each, the reclaiming of all that is lost in beautiful stories, a lengthy, humble appreciation in the lessons of art, love as generosity and gift, endlessly given. He does go on a bit, but with enough good will you can almost see that as charming in its way.

You reveal a great deal about yourself in the essay "Things I Wish Books Hadn't Taught Me." You describe how we write and read fiction in order to make sense of our lives, and also how we live our lives in a fictional way in order to provide them with meaning. Do you think fiction is better suited to ground us or to realise unreal expectations?

That opening sentence makes me nervous. Fiction is very good at both. All narrative expectations – around resolution and meaning – are fundamentally unrealistic in life, but equally fiction is skilled at showing us what’s real and authentic and true. Hanna Segal says that art is effectively about breaking things, creating destruction and despair and chaos, and then putting the pieces back together to make something new and beautiful. Suffering is inevitable, art says, but equally reparation (in our own minds at least) is always possible. I think it’s going through that emotional journey in a work of fiction that’s the point.

What is a "three-hour one-off exam" and how does it favor males?

In arts subjects at my university there is no option to retake an exam if you fail it. You get one shot and that’s it. Most exams are three hours long and candidates are asked to write up to four essays. It’s a marked tendency amongst talented women students to try to remember everything they have read and learned. This is a disaster. No way can they reproduce everything in a scant 45 minutes and inevitably they fall prey to the temptation to regurgitate information in an undifferentiated, shapeless splurge. It’s not pretty. Male candidates have a marked tendency to make the most of the limited amount of material they have committed to memory, and make it relevant to the question posed. It’s not fair, but it’s a far better strategy.

In the essay "A Mini Guide to Surrealism" you write "Despite the fact that copious quantities of drink and drugs gave the Surrealists that delightful sensation of being the funniest, most inventive group of people on the earth...." Are you suggesting that Surrealists are not the funniest, most inventive group of people on earth?

Inventive, yes, without doubt. But some of those jokes are really showing their age now. The title of funniest, most inventive group of people on earth must surely pass now to book bloggers, don’t you agree?

Describe how you came to write "A Mini Guide to Surrealism."

This came about at a point when I was going through a blogging dip and feeling that I ought to try to restrain my verbose style. It occurred to me that I could write a series of mini-guides to various literary and artistic movements of the modern age. Surrealism came straight to mind because it’s full of good anecdotal stories about the artists, their relationships with one another and to the art they produced. Once I’d written it, and failed entirely to curb my word count, I felt back in the groove again, and went on to write other things.

Though you provide a broad outline of Surrealism and its influence on many different forms of art, you offer only a few lines about writing. What further insights can you give us into Surrealist fiction?

One of the elements of Surrealist fiction that has always enchanted me is ‘le hasard objectif’, or objective chance. What this means is that the random and arbitrary are in fact deeply significant; chance is in fact a product of our deepest desires. So, for instance, Breton wanders the streets of Paris, having fallen in love with his flaky muse, Nadja, and lo and behold he runs into her every time he thinks of her. According to Breton, it’s inevitable he should bump into Nadja because he wants her so. This is magically, supernaturally, delightfully mad, and oddly convincing despite its implausibility. But it also shows that for Breton at least, Surrealism was about extending the power of the mind beyond all constraints of reason, not celebrating madness.

How does the prevalence of the Rescue Fantasy correspond to a general erosion of personal responsibility in today's society?

I think we live in a world where we are increasingly encouraged to behave like children: our desires have to be instantly gratified, our narcissistic fantasies of power and glorification are taken seriously, and the legal system continually encourages us to place blame on other people’s shoulders. To be fair, I think the rescue fantasy has been around since the dawn of time, but if it’s more prevalent today, it’s because we are ever more alienated from our capacities to solve problems, tolerate suffering and take responsibility for ourselves. You know, I write that and I have to admit that I am appalling at tolerating suffering; I’m the least stoic person I know.

Describe the appeal of the powerful love affair between two artists.

I think there are two emotional strands in love, one that comforts and offers stability and security, and another that provokes dramatic change, alteration and creativity (although it can also be destructive, too). It’s probably a fantasy of my own, but in the stories I’ve been reading of artists in love, it’s fascinating to see how they take that latter strand and feed it into the work they produce in the heat of passion. Something extraordinary almost always results in both life and art, and I find myself drawn again and again to writing about it.

What essay elicited the most comments on your blog, and to what do you attribute the strong response?

The most comments for one post came when I had to take a lengthy blogging break last autumn after gastric ‘flu brought on a bad relapse of ME. I’ve always thought blogging was fundamentally about community, and I was so very grateful for those messages of support at that time. The post that caused the most immediate and engaged response from fellow bloggers was the one in which I wondered what to do about a graduate student who was pressing me for a lunch date. In both cases, I felt that my friends wanted to look out for me, and their protectiveness gave me the most immense feeling of tenderness and gratitude. The silly sneering from mainstream media about angry, attention-seeking bloggers just astounds me, as I’ve only ever encountered intelligent, generous and enlightened people in cyberspace.

What lies at the point of perfection in your heart?

A perfect act of communication: a sentence that is eloquent, elegant and meaningful and heard in its full and flawless richness. I don’t expect ever to experience it, but I’m prepared to spend my best years trying.

Finally, may we take you to lunch tomorrow?

The Death of Outrage, or Are You Smarter Than an American Idol?

Today we bring you another in what has become a series of laments about the sad state of learning in our modern society. Though this isn't strictly about books, it does have some bearing on reading, or the failure to read. This may come to either of my readers as old news, but last night was our first exposure to what we are about to describe: Kellie Pickler appeared on the television show "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader?"

Wikipedia tells us that Kellie Dawn Pickler, age 21, is an American pop country music singer-songwriter who finished sixth on the fifth season of the Fox television series "American Idol". She has since been signed to BNA Records as a recording artist, with her debut album Small Town Girl being released in late 2006. The album has been certified gold in the United States for sales exceeding 500,000 copies, and it has produced three singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. Ms. Pickler graduated in 2004 from North Stanly High School in New London, North Carolina.

We have watched "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader?" several times. It is a fine quiz show, vastly superior to "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" because the questions do not revolve around pop culture, and because the show involves children. We also watched because we found first-year student Marki Ann Meyer to be adorable.

On the television show, Ms. Pickler was asked, "Budapest is the capital of what European country?" She replied, "This might be a stupid question, but I thought Europe was a country." She thought it might be France, and then was confused if France really was a country or not. When told the answer was Hungary, she did not believe the host. She said, "Hungry [sic]? That's a country? I've heard of Turkey, but Hungry? I've never heard of it." The video can be seen here:



That's good for a laugh, right? "It is her innocent ignorance that makes her so cute and likable," as someone commented on the television show message boards. But look at her face, and one can see she is completely overwhelmed, she is not acting the part of a ditzy blonde for commercial appeal.

Okay, so she's not a geography major. But since she is a musician, one would expect her to know about music. When she was asked what family of instruments the piccolo belonged to, she was still lost. She had no idea what a piccolo was, and it sounded as if she didn't know what percussion, woodwind, or strings was either. So she used her critical thinking skills and decided that the piccolo was from the percussion family because they both started with a P. She also determined that Franklin Pierce was a United States President because his last name began with a P, just as hers did.

Sadly, the audience found her answers funny. According to her website, when she appeared on "American Idol", her vibrant vocals, boundless energy, bubbly personality and refreshing honesty not only won over the judges, but endeared her to viewers as well. She is not stupid, she is quirky. She is not troubling, she is charming. Incredibly, Ms. Pickler has received numerous awards from local and statewide government officials praising her accomplishments as a contestant on the American Idol television show. Why hasn't she received numerous condemnations for her astounding lack of basic knowledge as supposedly taught in our schools? This is the death of outrage.

Ms. Pickler stands out as a perfect example of many. As far as we know, every contestant on the show has either flunked out or dropped out of the game before winning. The gentleman who followed Ms. Pickler answered the very first question wrong: how many e's are in the word mathematics? Something we are supposed to be taught in first-grade spelling.



Ms. Pickler undoubtedly possesses appealing features, including many of the attributes prized by the superficial male. She certainly has a pleasant singing voice. Her website calls her life a "fairy tale". What we are being told is that one needn't be smarter than a fifth-grader to be successful, one needs only smarts; happily ever after is equated with celebrity; looks will take you further than knowledge; all our heroes are whores.

The Cost of Reading, or Be Like John Bardeen

On Saturday a woman came into the bookshop with her husband and two children. She looked at a first edition hard cover of Jeffrey Archer and declared the price of $10.80 to be too expensive. She returned the book to the shelf, looked down another aisle, then said a curt "Thank you" and led her family out the door. Her husband proceeded to unload his golf clubs from the back of their van and head into the Golf and Pub, while she drove off with the children to visit the nearby amusement and water park where she will have no qualms about charging $200 or so to her VISA.

We recall an episode of The Simpsons in which Marge laments she never had the opportunity to apply the things taught in calculus class to her everyday life situations. The joke, of course, is that unless you are an engineer building the space shuttle, calculus will never apply to your everyday life situations. For many, calculus is studied in order to graduate, but never really learned, and then promptly forgotten. As our society becomes more visual, and more focused on the end user, learning is more often done by trial and error. See how a child learns to operate the remote control and the computer. Or how quickly he learns and masters a video game. Is it any wonder children study without learning and then forget how to read and write as well as do arithmetic?

The Golf and Pub is down the street from our store, and we watch people lug their clubs in all day long, far more in number than those who come into the bookshop. Americans have become brainwashed into equating the spending of money with being entertained. We wonder why other countries are performing better in academics. In a culture where the emphasis is on sports and celebrity, few children say "When I grow up, I want to be just like John Bardeen." They want to be like Tiger Woods or Paris Hilton. Why doesn't Random House turn to Tiger Woods to promote reading? Just as he raves about driving a Fusion, or shaving with a Tahoe, he can enthuse about the excitement, drama, and mystery of a Random House novel, or how he learned all about his idol Sam Snead by reading a Random House biography.

How will golf change the world? In 500 years, who will remember Paris Hilton? Few enter the bookshop while many enter the Golf and Pub; yet golf is the elite activity, requiring the expense of equipment as well as the precise maintenance of large amounts of land in an unnatural state. Only voting is more emblematic of democracy than reading. The Church used to put people to death for publishing the Bible in the vernacular, because they knew the consequences. Reading the Bible changed the world. Reading the Ninety-five Theses changed the world. The lasting value of books is so great as to make their cost negligible.

A man entered the shop today. "How much," he said as he strode by at a brisk pace, "do you want for..." and he quickly returned to place upon the counter a Stephen King book he had pulled from the shelf. $10.80. He already had his notes in hand, and without hesitation he peeled off two and handed them to me. My hope for mankind lingers on.

Afternoon Delight, or Reading The Best Of

Well, I wasn't quite as lucky as Bloglily, who enjoyed her in the flesh, but it did feel like I spent the entire afternoon with Litlove on Saturday. In between selling books at the shop, I read her new book The Best of Tales From The Reading Room. Though I have visited her salon often, I found I had never read much of her best. If you haven't already been, go check out the salon now. And when you discover you enjoy what you read, then go buy the book. Do this all in preparation for an impending wide-ranging interview with Litlove in this webspace. We promise to expose all her secrets!

Storylines, or Beyond One Dimension

Narrative irons everything out flat, linear, and one-way. It is what we use and how we are able to make sense of multidimensional experience. Today's question is, how can we overcome the flat, linear, one-way nature of fiction? How do we capture the messy, paradoxical simultaneous life? And if the essence of narrative makes such a thing impossible, what form of art can achieve it?

We Need More Slaves, or Let's Read Together

Danielle has dusted out some of the cobwebs at The Slaves of Golconda and the next book to read and discuss is The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence. There is still over a month left to read and digest it. The group continues to grow and more invitations have been sent out. If you would like to join in the mining, or know someone who might, let us know.

Short Stories, or How the Universe Works

Short stories have never interested us much. Perhaps it goes back to literature classes that forced us to answer twelve questions about every short story we read to show we understood its meaning and whatever.

A few months ago we were emboldened by Litlove's post about a story by Maupassant to pick up our volume of his short stories and read. We all tell stories every day of our lives, and many of Maupassant's stories struck us as being just like that. We had never thought of or regarded short stories in such a way, and soon the previously conceived possibility of writing some of our own transformed into a present probability.

Just when we start to consider writing short stories, we also follow a suggestion to read short stories. We do not intentionally do one because of the other. Reading the stories, however, reveals things to us that help us to understand the writing of them. This is all to set up the first of a series of questions we pose to either of our readers: what is the cause and what is the effect? Do we find the answer and then discover the question? Or do we know the question but don't ask it until we have stumbled upon the answer? Do we subconsciously mold one to fit the other? What is it that brings question and answer together? Does a person or thing uncover a hidden need, or create a new need? Or does a hidden need seek out the person or thing to uncover it?

You may discuss among yourselves for the next five minutes, and then please share your answers with the rest of us.

Possibilities

Three months.

I don't blame you if you didn't wait for me.

For those who pop your head back in, I will be generating some thoughts in the near future. Until then, you can read my column From The Bookshop, as well as the works of many other fine writers, in the new January issue of ...