Note
from Editor:
Post-modernity
is a term which I feel sums up the present environment we are dealing
with: in business, society, relationships and art. C.
Andrews, who is both an artist and English teacher, shares his insights into Post-modernity. I believe we can all learn how to integrate our purpose
into this Postmodern world through a better understanding, upon which C. Andrews
helps shed light.
Coping
with Post-modernity
Part II: The Fragmentation of Reading
I. Literacy in the Visual Age
For starters, let us agree upon a definition of literacy: the ability to
read and write. Of course, this definition cannot be satisfactory; for, it fails
to address how well one reads and writes. Moreover, other fields have seized
upon the term literacy to suit their
needs—case in point: “computer literacy.” Indeed, Merriam-Webster’s
current edition of its Collegiate Dictionary places the synonyms educated
and cultured in the first definition
of literate, but if we trace the
etymology of the word, we see that it derives from the Latin word littera,
which means letter. Should we be
surprised that a society (that has for the most part turned away from texts) has
redefined and generalized the heart of the very word that defines the artistic
currency of reading: literature?
Perhaps ironically, our society would appear to love books. Large
bookstore chains seem to materialize like so many mushrooms in the thickets of
shopping centers across the land. We love to give and receive books during
holiday times and birthdays. We love the ambience a bookcase adds to a room;
note the familiar backdrop of a bookcase in news interviews on television. We
would appear to be a reading nation, but how many people read the books they own
and actually complete them? I heard a figure recently that in a recent year
Americans read 2/3 of a book annually per capita. This seems difficult to
believe but gains credence when we actually look for evidence of book reading in
the masses. On an airplane, in a bus terminal, in a doctor’s waiting room,
what percentage of people are reading books? And what sorts of books are people
reading?
The amount of text each of us can read is finite. Even the person who
reads hundreds of books cover to cover each year will only be able to read a
fraction of the millions of available books. Given the brevity of a human life,
then, should not a reader seek out the best books ever written? It makes sense
that the texts of great thinkers--whether Plato, Lao Tzu, St. Paul or
others—would be on any list of great writings, so perhaps we should start
there. If nothing else, it makes sense that a curious westerner might desire to
read the source texts at the foundations of Western thought. Go to any
bookstore, though, or peruse many home bookcases and what you are bound to see
is a plethora of self-help books, new age treatises, and other simplified
thoughts lifted from the originals. People are reading a great deal of
psycho-babble but have never heard of Jung, have never read Freud. The
psychology community often casts aspersions on Freud, but how many psychology
textbooks still cannot refuse to acknowledge him? How many self-help books can
avoid the concepts of ego and super-ego (conscience)? And how many psychologists have actually read Freud?
May I suggest Totem and Taboo for
starters? (It’s less a book about the usual clichés ascribed to Freud than a
serious and scholarly inquiry into the nature of how things totemic and taboo
develop.) The point is, can a simplified book for the mainstream accurately
reflect the ideas, effects, and subtleties of the original source texts? Is it
not preferable to read Shakespeare’s own words than to read the comic book
version? Sure, the comic book (or
the Cliff’s Notes) is easier to read, but you have missed out on the main
thing—the effects of Shakespeare’s language.
Beyond the books of the world’s great thinkers—especially those texts
in the fields of philosophy, religion, psychology, and history—it seems
sensible to pursue the great classics of literature, since literature is after
all the art form that uses the written word as its medium. Defining classic
is bound to be problematic given the subjectivity of evaluating a text’s
artistic merits. Still, there is indeed a canon (or accepted body) of classics
that could easily provide even the most voracious reader with a lifetime of
reading material. Many great books are, of course, worthy of reading multiple
times; some books demand it. There certainly is nothing wrong with reading a
typical best-selling “page turner”—your Ludlum, Clancy, or what have
you—but when you get to the end, what can you take with you? Reading “brain
candy” books is a quick enjoyable treat, but how “nutritious”
are such texts? Reading popular fiction is like riding a thrill ride at
the amusement park; it’s exciting while it lasts, but afterward there is not
much mental reflection or spiritual growth. In short, to be great—to be a
classic—shouldn’t a book do something to us, make us better—more
thoughtful, more spiritual, more sensitive, more wise—in some way? To be
great, shouldn’t a book mean something important? And to be a great work of
art, shouldn’t a text somehow redefine or reshape its milieu?
There is not space to make a comprehensive list of classic books in this
brief essay. Local librarians should be prepared to make suggestions. In
addition, one may consult Harold Bloom’s The
Western Canon for an appendix of which books, in his opinion, comprise the
center of Western Civilization’s classics. For starters, I would certainly
recommend the Bible, Homer, the plays
of the great Greek tragedians, Virgil, Chaucer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton.
Once immersed in these important texts, one can move into Cervantes and the French
novel, through the great Russian novels, into the modern European canon,
culminating with Joyce. In America, there are Emerson, Whitman, Faulkner, and
others—Katherine Anne Porter, to name one underrated essential author.
Meanwhile, there is a universe of non-Anglo literature, with more and more
greatness emanating from South America, Asia, and other unexpected corners.
Reading is a lifestyle when the world’s great books are one’s fare.
Sadly, however, our society seems more and more prone to shift into the
instant meaning—the brief and fleeting visual image. Jane Austen’s world was
a world of written words. Letter writing was an art in a world without
telephones, without photography, without a means for easily reproducing a
graphic image. Today, though, meaning flits by us in the ephemeral pixels on our
television screens, in the Ben-day dots making up the billboard image, in the
airbrushed skin tones of the model’s face as her offset-printed smile glints up
from a surrounding moat of captions. In a world with more and more labor saving
devices, in a world with far more leisure time than Shakespeare’s world
enjoyed, we are becoming a people of non-readers. It would be interesting to
shift the paradigm—to envision a world in which image and text can coexist
comfortably. Imagine, too, living in a world where more and more people are readers who read not just for information but for enlightenment as well.
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