Why Read At All?

[Liam]

An excellent new essay by Alberto Manguel (I first came across his name via an introduction he wrote for Edith Grossman's recent translation of Luis de Gongora's Solitudes).

Books are considered a culture's memory. But since we keep repeating our mistakes, maybe we shouldn't bother...

[Liam]

Such a beautiful observation:

...again and again, empires fall and literature continues...

Kind of obvious, too, but so amazingly put.

[Eric]

It says somewhere that Old Mangle is an anthologist. That's my problem with this article of his: he spreads himself a bit too thin by coursing through history and pulling out what seem to be a random selection of authors' names. I get the feeling that an almost identical romp would result from doing the same with quite another list of author's names and quotes. This is the same sort of thing that puts me off people such as David Bellos when describing the delights of translation. Too many details not enough focus.

[Liam]

True, and he doesn't deliver on the "promise" of the essay's title, does he?

But I think I agree with his main point: art and literature are worth our time because they are the only things that survive.

[Eric]

I think most of us on this forum agree with the general premiss of what he says. But isn't it stating the obvious (as you yourself suggest) that art and the arts in general must survive if we're not going to descend into barbarism or become slaves to machines? He's just introducing a Devil's advocate kind of argument to get noticed.

Edith Grossman, on the other hand, wrote a really good and perceptive book about literary translation.

[pesahson]

Thanks for the link, Liam. It was a very enjoyable essay to read while sipping on my morning coffee.

[Hamlet]

I've been giving this topic some thought recently, and I haven't even read the article, yet!

In terms of what we read, I think we're drawn to certain writers, because we are looking for something; we find or discover a writer, and enjoy the read, pleasure first, and second -- the intellectual nourishment the work provides, and then we move on. But I suspect that we already knew some of what we were going to find there, the life-view, philosophy, and so on and such forth, and so on one level the work confirms this viewpoint? Or expresses it better than we ever could ourselves. So, it's not so much a case of stored-up knowledge which is either good or bad, corrupting or elevating, erudite or ammonite, but of course, let's no forget, we're are able to see the problems and attitudes of the past and weigh them against our own experiences; "the book" isn't just a one way mirror! We interrogate it!

And as long as you stay away from Dan Brown ... where's the harm or mischief in all of that?

[Anja]

There's some weird interpretation of reading connected to sex which is also explained a bit in Small World by David Lodge.
Though ... I wouldn't really recommend reading this book ... it's funny in some parts, ok in others and in some it's just plain boring so ...