Post 24

My dear AP British Literature teacher, Mr. Richards--I had many teachers whilst enrolled in public schooling, but 'twas not till I learned at his feet in the 12th grade that I had one who honest-to-goodness changed my life, revolutionized my thought processes, completely altered the way I perceive reality--this great man coined the term (at least as far as I know) "pseudo-intellectual." Never, though, until just recently did I ever feel guilty of pseudo-intellectualism, but somehow mine eyes have been suddenly opened wide to my own hypocrisy, and I RECANT!

Ever since being taught by the immortal (though now retired and vanished) Mister Richards, I have wanted to become what one might call "well read," but there was always a sort of insurmountable barrier between me and Wellreddendom: a whole lotta reading. I've always been a bookish kind of guy, nevertheless my desire to be well read was not so much to read great books as to have read great books so I might be able to flaunt my knowledge and wellreddenness. [Isn't it stupid how I misspell "read" in such invented words?] About all I learned from my pre-mission education was that Classics take a long time to read (Richards taught me to think not to love), and time is, to me, a very expensive commodity (not that I have anything terribly important to do).

After moving to the exotic land I now call home, I became aware of a new hurdle on the road to wellreddendom: somewhere in the last few years, I lost my love for fiction--or rather I grew up enough to learn that modern fiction is largely unimpressive and pointless. Now, now, now--before you grab your pitchforks and torches and hunt me down, I want you know that I express this sentiment knowing full well that, in so doing, I may well be missing the entire point of fiction, but I--and this is important--I don't care. I am in a defining moment of my life; anything that changes me or forces me to at least reconsider and rearrange my perceived norms is, to me, necessarily good. Any feel-good, happily-ever-after story is, in my mind, nothing but a senseless hippie-la-la waste of my time. And I don't mean to say just books, but art in any form--if it doesn't change me, it isn't worth my time. (If you think I'm just blowing smoke on this matter, allow me to make an appeal to authority--real Authority: God.)

This sudden loathing of fiction has brought me to a deeper appreciation of fiction, though. Shortly after moving here, and friend of mine lent me the final Harry Potter book. I really had no desire to read it--volume six shut me off hardcore--but, having invested all the time into reading all of the other books, I had to know how Rowling would finish the series off. Not cherishing the thought of suffering through a week or two of reading just to find out how the darn thing ended, and believing reading only the last couple chapters to be completely immoral, I sat down one day and read it--all of it--in a single go. Swallowed it whole, so to speak; finished shortly after 6:00 in the morning. Quite nearly every anticipation of disappointment I had was fulfilled--the epilogue is about as trite and hippie-la-la as fiction gets (especially at 6am!)--but I read it, and now I have a sure knowledge of my distaste rather than a mere premonition.

Many years ago, we all had a good laugh sitting around the breakfast table when the younger of my two sisters chewed a multivitamin that was meant to be swallowed whole--haha! Poor girl doesn't like pills in the first place, now here she is gagging and choking and guzzling orange juice when, if she had simply swallowed it whole, she could have gotten the benefits without the suffering. Thus it seems to me with fiction: swallow it whole and then allow it to digest for as long as is needed. Kinda like shoveling in as much Chinese food as you can at a buffet in a race against your stomach's ability to register full.

Since moving here, I have started and left unfinished The Sign of Four by Sir Author Conan Doyle, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, The Firm by John Grisham, and even a little bit of Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne. I started each with high hopes, even enjoyed them as I read (with the exception of Grisham, who I say should have just stuck with law--the man can't write!), but whenever some call of duty came, I would insert a bookmark, walk away, and never find myself able to pick them back up.

But, thanks to my swallow-it-whole methodology, I have now read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, 1984 by George Orwell, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and "Euthyphro" by Plato, and I have a pile of books waiting to be swallowed, which I intend to dispatch before the end of the month (some C. S. Lewis, some Emerson and Thoreau, and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" among them). The impact is--sometimes brutal (keeping with the ingestion metaphor, 1984 gave me some hardcore indigestion, kept me disturbed for a good 72 hours), but overall I do not find this exercise at all distasteful.

I do not claim to be wise; I certainly don't recommend this to anyone, but I will become well read, or I will die trying! I intended to include some reviews herein, but this post is already long enough, so I end here.