browsing without the ‘t’ and brūach

Posted by jrlookingbill on 05/05/2013

Not long ago, in a land requiring a connecting flight to reach, I spent copious hours trying to relax by a mix of playing video games, reading, and occupying space socially networking whilst combing through sports information — when the television was n’t available. It ‘s a wonder ever any work was completed. or thought. Still, if the need to ‘collect my thoughts’ strikes me I might well withdraw into the blank space that is browsing — whether physical or cyberspace pages or channels.

What value is to be found in such activity?

I ‘ve already mentioned I believed and sometimes affirm the idea yet that thinking is stimulated or collectable in these formats. Channels is a good way to consider this. But less time is normally used in finding and re-appropriating information than in floating down-river. Take reading by this analogy: it takes concentration to find relevant landmarks — recalling them is another matter. or justifying the author’s choices. For the majority of my television or internet intake, little is taken in and then put to any use. But a surprisingly small amount of my reading proves useful in the long-term. Each leaves a residue with some sense of ‘I like X about Y’ but little else.

More often much reading is wishing I had composed words in a like matter — or at least had proved to all my thinking’s superiority. Moreso for internet browsing — most of that time was spent reappraising relationships, wishing I had gone places or had other experiences (true of narrative reading sometimes) to share or had achieved some status worthy of showing off. All this while I wait for someone to engage in a round of messaging. You will notice, I hope by now, I am speaking of dead or extremely passive actions in each of these three media.

Too much of my time is and has been spent re-thinking someone else’s thoughts, regardless of my immediate reactions. Interaction is minimised while the intrapersonal dwarfs the interpersonal.

What I would pretend to want is critical engagement. Why else do I read? I read to find out my own mental positions. But as these are reactions, their locations quickly fade from memory. I am caught up in the stream and find myself after the browser is closed or there are no pages left between my right hand and the book jacket, almost nearly exactly where I was before.

Schopenhauer warned us not to read too much, but to formulate for ourselves instead. Interesting that ‘browse’ meant to ‘feed on buds’ — absent critical or interpersonal engagement I find my appetite unsated.

As a monument to this insatiety, I have attempted several times to maintain a list of books read when there is so little to show for the effort paid reading them. While I affirm reading classics is often useful, it is only when my mind is alert that the reading might prove useful. Of course the physical page for focus’ sake is to be lauded in comparison to the online page — it is too easily to be distracted by the anticipation of the next bit of information. If you must read online, your finger-tension on the mouse betrays your true feelings. The allure of the television is what else might be on.

Now I have mentioned inter-personality as a value — and I would defend this position if the opportunity for mental activity in discussion is taken up. And this is perhaps the lone remaining value for most of our internet intake — we share a few moments of having perused the same information and experienced a similar perspective. But most is lost in a sea of unknowing.

And if our thoughts are bound to be swallowed by the waves anyway, whose thoughts should they be?

Not Till We Are Lost

Posted by jrlookingbill on 04/12/2012

Not till we are lost, in other words, till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.

~~H.D. Thoreau, Walden ‘the Village’, p. 115 (Norton ed.)

All ways it surprises me how one reading leads to another. I am reduced, though it is my gain, to admit that in being lost one becomes more intimately aware of relations, if not relatedness itself (how such should ascend the stage would be quite the imponderable — how to raise the curtain which by nature connects all to itself?).

Is n’t being lost amidst a sea of pages similar to being lost amidst the calm of wintering trees?

But I am reduced in conveying the value of ‘lostness’. How can an example be helpful if the experience itself is paramount? Let it be understood I mean less to point at than to indicate; it is merely ironic that I should at last find an acquaintance with S. Cavell only after being dis-covered 9for all reading is being read — an idea I believe I am borrowing from Cavell here9 to Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations.

In reading one can hardly help multiplying ‘relations’ as I believe Thoreau would have them.

“““““““““““““““““““““““““`

For Thoreau ‘reading’ in such manner is seeing everything in the light of being darkened to the world which sets its watch by the locomotive and is employed not in living but in holding onto what scraps of life are allowed — turning away from that enslaving which is ownership so that the ‘read’er may find life in its sport rather than be made sport of as life runs past:

[L]et not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not.

~~ibidem “Baker Farm” p. 139

The path to such reading can only be seen if one has ‘been turned round once in this world’ (p. 115). To find oneself can only come by means of being lost. Till then, till one is lost and finds that she is everywhere at home — till then sight must be sought. And that is reading in its truest form.

My reading of Wittgenstein has led through Cavell and into Walden all too naturally, but it is only because I am growing used to the lost element in reading that I find them such near relations.

the why of non-reading and why i’m still a mediocre non-reader

Posted by jrlookingbill on 06/09/2012

Not sure I ‘d ever find the exit again

Been thinking a lot about reading lately — mostly as I ‘ve not been able to do much of the reading I wish to. I tend to go a little crazy in-between reads, but then there’s a certain craze always in my process as a reader. Theoretically, or imaginatively, I intuit that there is no reading without purpose. Sadly, my purpose is occasionally only to say that I have read. But what does that mean?

***

What I think I think about reading~

How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read gave me a few categories for non-reading which help me think about reading more clearly. The vast majority of what we read fades into the recesses of memory — often to unrecognizable forms. They become part of our ‘screen books’ in which our readings serve our own purposes. I try to be honest — most of my ‘author’ial citations are for the purposes of establishing my own view’s authority. Author-authority — I ‘m engaging in some measure of an argument from authority when I cite my interpretation of X.

And our society engages in a goodly measure of this activity. It even leads to pseudepigraphal (mis)attributions which are patently false. C.S. Lewis, St. Augustine, Einstein, Sherlock Holmes (‘elementary my Dear Watson’), St. Francis of Assisi (‘Preach the gospel always and, if necessary, use words’), Marie Antoinette (‘Let them eat cake’…was Rousseau and quite possibly speaking of another dignitary), or (of course) Mark Twain. Why then is this the case? The best I can offer is that if we hear an idea, and it sounds particularly appealing, we are most willing to accept its authority if we can find a suitable authorial source.

listen to him

~~~

One of my favorite authors says, more or less, that we ought to affirm an idea based on its truth rather than based on its source and reject an idea for its untruth by the same measure. You can see that I ‘m not willing to let the author go, but I am willing to affirm that we are the active agents in discourse — we are the ones expressing our sentiments and seeking to show their solidity. I recommend three items (you might suggest your own) as I have struggled with this thought:

thoroughly consider why you think this is a helpful concept (so examine thineself)
if you can’t find the source (in an actual book or article), let it stand on its own
before filling out the citation line, give pause one last time to see whose purpose you ‘re serving by attributing this author’s voice to this idea

***`

See, there ‘s some problem in that we limit authors to a certain location in our discourse as a society. They occupy this space and no other. E.g., it is shocking to some evangelicals how un-evangelical C.S. Lewis really is. Or, Bertrand Russell is afforded a certain role as a genius. This may be the case, but I personally have n’t found his works helpful or challenging toward helpful ends. If the author is n’t given a chance to surprise us, as real people so often do, we are treating them as points on a spectrum (and stationary points at that) and they are less likely to rock us off our base/to challenge our pre-supposed view of reality. Therefore, we have to be careful to allow the writer to be the author to some extent — let her or his words speak in this space and interact with them in that space (even challenge why they chose this space).

It is in this sense that we too ought to approach reading as authors. Reading should not be a passive activity, for then it is only an act of memory. We should instead be able to not only interact but interact critically with those whom we read. Such an approach does justice to the fact that we are operating in discourse as well. Otherwise we too fade away as the reading passes into inaccessible memories.

**’***’

~What my reading actually looks like

*`**

But further, my external philosophy of reading conflicts with my motivations as a reader. I want to do justice to the author, but I ‘m also looking for thoughts I can use. Even though large portions of the book won’t prove useful, I still hold onto this fear that I ‘ll miss something important if I do n’t read every word. While I know that I will remember impressions rather than words, I still find myself racing through pages in the interest of saying that I have ‘read’ this work. For reading is the means by which I establish myself as an authoritative critic.

As I suggested, I give the author a chance to surprise me; but too often I judge myself as a reader based on whether I have completed every page (and forgotten its contents) rather than what thoughts I have gleaned and meditated fruitfully upon. The latter are the very purpose for which I read, but I still fall into the trap of reading for completion. The quantitative overrides the qualitative and I ‘m left with another forgotten book and not enough to say.

Am I reading to say I have read, or to encounter ideas and be changed by them? This has rightly bothered me in the last few weeks, but I ‘m not sure I ‘ve come much closer to any form of an answer. I can only say that I am better aware of some mis-purposes my reading may serve and that I wish to continue reading despite this.

——-=————————~———————————-~–

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…or I shalt be subjected to conflagration

Sources for misattributed quotes:

some famous ensamples: http://theydidnotsay.tumblr.com/
egregious and harmful examples: http://onviolence.com/?e=225
Wiki’s offering (everything from minor errors to major blunders; I ‘m most interested in those which fit the category of mis-attribution because this calls into question the relation of assertion and the authority of the asserter): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/List_of_misquotations
- I could n’t find examples I was thoroughly satisfied with here. Perhaps you, as the critical reader, can provide help in this matter. I ‘m looking for anything relating to what it says about a society when misattribution is evidenced.
- case study of something C.S. Lewis did not and almost certainly would not have said: http://mereorthodoxy.com/blog/you-dont-have-a-soul-cs-lewis-never-said-it/

On Non-reading:

another reader’s summation of non-reading; but then you could just read How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. http://karlomongaya.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/the-fine-points-of-non-reading/
A non-reading which interacts better with Bayard’s core idea (overcoming shame in non-reading): http://enotes.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/how-to-talk-about-books-you-havent-read/

A fellow addict:

http://apilgriminnarnia.com/2012/09/06/booklove/ (reminds me of the sad priest in Les Miserables who I commiserated with as he sold his last tomes…but then Les Mis was an extended series of miseries)

Index Nominum: Pointings-to

Posted by jrlookingbill on 27/07/2012

Welcome to the list,

While still resisting imposing a stringent order for these blog posts – I ‘m a bit captive to the thought that each reader is in some sense experiencing a different book, especially as they can approach these points in various orders – having something with which to point to works cited or considered valuable (or mis-valuated) could be beneficial. I ‘ll include the disclaimer that a list of works-read can become an exercise in hubris easily (you can’t see my face beam as you browse in awe the titles lining my bookshelf, but we ‘re both better off without such exercises). Having said that, this may prove helpful for me when/should I seriously revisit these works. Apologies for any confusing elements (when do I offer that?) – feel free to enlighten me as to how I could make these indices more helpful, or if there is some glaring hole in my bookshelf you ‘d recommend.

I shall limit myself to those books which leave some sort of impression worth remembering or which I ‘d like to revisit in twenty years. Links to relevant posts (I ‘ll risk the embarrassment) will be attached and updated. So long as I read, or pretend to care about what I read, I shall have to be updating these stores (while concealing my waning memories from view).

–The Bible

–The Qur’an/Koran

formative texts for major world religions which I ‘ll be revisiting often

Augustine (354-430)

Teacher, the (abr)

On Free Will (abr)

“But if you did not exist, it would be impossible for you to be deceived.” ~Bk II. iii, 7.

“Don’t you see that you will have to be careful lest someone say to you that, if all things of which God has foreknowledge are done by necessity and not voluntarily, his own future acts will be done not voluntarily but by necessity?” ~Bk III. iii, 6

Retractions

On the Trinity (abr)

Confessions, the

pious musings about God’s pursuit of his soul (and the nature of time) – this work has been formative for me

City of God, the (abr)

Boethius (ca. 480-524)

Consolation of Philosophy, the

the character of Wisdom/Sophia and Boethius’ pursuit of her despite the cost is an important image; the poetry (especially about Orpheus) is a nice bonus

How Substance Can be Good in Virtue of Their Existence Without Being Absolute Goods

John Scotus Eriugena (ca. 810-ca. 877)

On the Division of Nature

Abu Nasr al-Farabi/Alfarabi (ca. 870-950)

Letter Concerning the Intellect, the

Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle

Saadia ben Joseph (882-942)

Book of Doctrines and Beliefs

Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina/Avicenna (980-1037)

Healing, Metaphysics, the

Deliverance, Psychology, the

Solomon ibn Gabirol (ca. 1022-ca. 1051 or ca. 1070)

Fountain of Life, the

Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)

Proslogion

Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali/Ghazzali/Algazali/Algazel (1058-1111)

Deliverance from Error/Munqidh min al-Dalal

Similar to Augustine’s Confessions, Ghazali’s Deliverer is a spiritual autobiography. As such, its true purpose is to lead others to submit to God. Ghazali’s search for wisdom in various corners before finding it in mysticism (though reformatted for sake of polemic and to avoid charges of being trained in mysticism rather than finding it) may be somewhat exaggerated, but his search to be part of something truly lasting – to do what is most worthwhile – is an enduring image for this poor reader

Incoherence of the Philosophers, the/Tahafut al-falasifa

How can you not love this title? Ghazali sets precedents for metaphysical and religious dialogue which ought to be weighed carefully.

Niche of Lights, the

Peter Abailard (1079-1142)

Glosses of Peter Abailard on Porphyry, the

Ethics or Know Thyself

John of Salisbury (1120-1180)

Metalogicon, the

Abu al-Walid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd/Averroes (1126-1198)

Decisive Treatise Determining the Nature of the Connection Between Religion and Philosophy, the

Treatise Concerning the Substance of the Celestial Sphere, the

Long Commentary on ‘De Anima’

Moses Maimonides (1135-1204)

Guide of the Perplexed, the

Robert Grosseteste (ca. 1168-1253)

On Light

Roger Bacon (ca. 1214-ca. 1292)

Opus Majus, the

Bonaventure (1221-1274)

Conferences on the Hexaemeron

Retracing the Arts to Theology or Sacred Theology: the Mistress Among the Sciences

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

On Being and Essence

Summa Theologica, the

Siger of Brabant (ca. 1240-ca. 1284)

Question on the Eternity of the World

John Duns Scotus (1265-1308)

Oxford Commentary on the Four Books of the Sentences, the

William of Ockham (ca. 1280-1349)

Summa Totius Logicae

Commentary on the Sentences

Marsilius of Padua (ca. 1275/1280-ca. 1342)

Defender of Peace, the

Levi ben Gerson (1288-1344)

Wars of the Lord, the

Nicholas of Autrecourt (ca. 1300-?)

Letters to Bernard of Arezzo

John Buridan (ca. 1300-ca. 1358)

Questions on Aristotle’s Metaphysics

Questions on the Ten Books of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle

Questions on the Eight Books of the Physics of Aristotle

Hasdai Crescas (d. ca. 1412)

Light of the Lord, the

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

Discourse on Method (abr) – Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking for Truth in the Sciences

Descartes’ metaphysical doubt is expounded here (but how can one truly doubt with a purpose?) and will always be something of a philosophical intrigue

Meditations on First Philosophy (abr)

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

Thoughts (abr)

Baruch/Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677)

Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order (abr)

Theologico-Political Treatise (ch. XX)

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716)

First Truths

Discourse on Metaphysics

Monadology

George Berkeley (1685-1753)

Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (1713)

A discourse on the non-existence of matter (as the philosophers describe it)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

Social Contract, the (abr)

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Critique of Pure Reason (abr)

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814)

Vocation of Man, the (bk III)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)

Introduction to the Philosophy of History

Logic (p. 1 of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, ch. 7, a)

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

World as Will and Idea, the (abr)

Isidore Auguste Marie Francois Comte (1798-1857)

General View of Positivism, a (chs. I and VI) (abr)

I recommend no one use the word ‘positivism’ around me for awhile – Comte completely wore it out and failed to helpfully define it

George MacDonald (1824-1905)

Lilith: a Romance (1895)

Phantastes

Ernst Mach (1836-1916)

Analysis of Sensations and the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical, the (chs. I and XV)

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Birth of Tragedy, the Or: Hellenism and Pessimism (1872)

Seventy-Five Aphorisms from Five Volumes

Beyond Good and Evil (1886)

On the Genealogy of Morals (1887)

Case of Wagner, the (1888)

Ecce Homo (1908)

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Man and Superman (1903)

Don Juan the pursued; we see the power of a woman on full display and wonder how it might be different should society truly manage to redefine her role – attached guide to social anarchism. This was very insightful, or at least amusing, and my only complaint is that the characters were too well connected (esp. Mendoza, who I would have liked to have heard more of, but less about ‘Louisa’; perhaps the intention, but I did ne like it)

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

Ontology-the Hermeneutics of Facticity

Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963)

Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the (1950)

Prince Caspian (1951)

Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the (1952)

Silver Chair, the (1953)

Horse and His Boy, the (1954)

Magician’s Nephew, the (1955)

Last Battle, the (1956)

Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (1956)

Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (1963)

Discarded Image, the: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1964)

Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1966)

George Orwell [Eric Blair] (1903-1950)

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Animal Farm

Albert Camus

Plague, the

Sheldon Vanauken (1914-1996)

Severe Mercy, a (1977)

Michel Foucault

Archaeology of Knowledge, the & Discourse on Language, the

–Philosophy in the Middle Ages: The Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Traditions, 2^nd ed. (1973) ed. by Arthur Hyman & James J. Walsh

–European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche, the (2002) ed. by Monroe Beardsley

Merold Westphal

Overcoming Onto-Theology

Christian, Post-modern, and Continental, Westphal instructed my Philosophical Hermeneutics class summer of ’11 and introduced me to Gadamer’s Truth and Method as well as a responsible appropriation of key thoughts about interpretation. As I enjoy Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, Westphal was a welcome voice; one which was n’t afraid to use decidedly anti-religious rhetoric for truly religious purposes.

Important concepts/key terms:

Kantian anti-realism (i.e. holist w/o the whole)

hermeneutical circle (Descartes seeks to escape interp by way of rationality [Alpha -> beginning of interp], Hegel to escape by perfected dialectic [Omega -> interp reaches its end/telos]

onto-theology (Heidegger’s critique of using the god-concept [where God’s existence is the ground of reason – so it helps us make arguments, not serve Him] in service of human mastery of the real

hermeneutics of finitude/hermeneutics of suspicion (createdness/contingency & sin/human fallenness)

‘The Fantastic Imagination’ by George MacDonald

Posted by jrlookingbill on 28/05/2012

After speaking of those laws which must be most strictly adhered to in any world authorially constructed, which MacDonald asserts that contradictions to the constructed laws will cause the world to evaporate and that, as writing cannot help having a meaning, it should not violate moral consistency either by calling good a character who does bad things. In this manner, we are made to understand

“[I]f it have proportion and harmony it has vitality, and vitality is truth. The beauty may be plainer in it than the truth, but without the truth the beauty could not be, and the fairytale would give no delight. Everyone, however, who feels the story, will read its meaning after his own nature and development: one man will read one meaning in it, another will read another.”

~The Fantastic Imagination (1893) by George MacDonald accessed here

Laws, even inverted physical or metaphysical laws, provide a space which may offer vitality. Perhaps we should think of something being ‘true to life’ in order to grasp what MacDonald might mean by “vitality is truth” or perhaps I have n’t grasped his meaning at all. Regardless, however, for the time I am pleased to consider such a thought (and to be guided to a better one should it present itself).

It reminds me of a time I attempted to defend the notion of truth as a person contra my fellow speaking of truth solely as correspondence. In his definition, ‘true to life’ meant that it was true to some overarching laws we might never be able to perceive truly (though he would assert, I think, that we know a good deal already – it is the denial of this which betrays weakness of stomach for him) but I can’t let the matter go so easily.

Truth is not a thing to be had in such a manner, but that which some chase while others abandon all hope of ever turning up the trail again. Perhaps it is not so elusive, but truth is at least that which is acceptable within our discourse (and so it lives as our stumbling words enable it to) and I think it goes beyond that as some persons are wholly incapable of being summed within our discourse well. Chief of these is, for my faith, Christ who seemed interested in showing the untruthfulness/deceitfulness of the hearts of many (coupled with the offer to then come follow). But the healing movement was not to agree to his underlying principles, it was to ‘go and sin no more’ – to be a follower in the truest sense, the living one.

My own considerations have, I think, bent away from where a close reading might take us (of Fantastic Imagination, not of MacDonald’s corpus I think) so I return to consider that the experience of that vitality in reading will be different for each reader. It is not that the reader has failed to meet the author’s intention, but that the author always says more than she intended and that some readers may find items which enrich the discourse in a manner the author could not have dreamed of.

“If so, how am I to assure myself that I am not reading my own meaning into it, but yours out of it?”

‘Why should you be so assured? It may be better that you should read your meaning into it. That may be a higher operation of your intellect than the mere reading of mine out of it: your meaning may be superior to mine.’”

~Ibidem

I love that MacDonald answers question with question for if we will understand our questions we may understand what we are hoping for. Many read with the hope of reconstructing the author’s intended reading, but no such thing can be reconstructed while maintaining the vitality which captured the author. It is the author’s job (as the sculptor’s) to remove that which is not truly part of the story so that the story may exhibit that life of which we are speaking.

As Pierre Bayard asserts, we are going to assert our meaning into the text – but hopefully we shall realize we are doing so and in so doing test our ‘seeing as’ to note whether it will hold up to the richness of the story. Instead of being assured that we bring nothing to the text (whether through force of will or otherwise) we ought to fully dive into this reading and see what can be made of it. Perhaps it is less than the author envisioned, but it may be more. Or, more likely, our seeing-as will teach us about the way in which we view the real world – the manner with which we approach vitality. It is my hope that, through submitting such readings in dialogue, we might learn how best to reconnect with our own world rather than escape from it and be trapped within the fantastic. Instead, the imagination is a tool to teach us indirectly about true vitality so that we may experience it in its fullness and that is most unlikely if we settle for the catching the author’s meaning where we should practice ‘living in’ so that we might learn how to better see home.

In sum,

“If a writer’s aim be logical conviction, he must spare no logical pains, not merely to be understood, but to escape being misunderstood; where his object is to move by suggestion, to cause to imagine, then let him assail the soul of his reader as the wind assails an æolian harp. If there be music in my reader, I would gladly wake it.”

~Ibidem

I believe logical conviction to be far less meaningful than the attempts to awaken or stir the soul of the reader. In such case misunderstanding is not the object of fear – it is to be immovable and incapable of being stirred from slumber. Which is the more frightening? Better by far to misunderstand and be misunderstood but strain to catch the music and join in.

Sharing the ‘Inner Book’: Meditations on ‘How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read’

Posted by jrlookingbill on 26/05/2012

If you do n’t talk about the books you read, they may, at best, only benefit you. A book may serve as the subject of your inner dialogue until you forget its contents, but that inevitable outcome always approaches far too quickly. In such case, our inner book is unlikely to reveal to us our own face while such mirroring may well occur in dialogue. Therefore, when we not only think about books but assert and deny, we use books not as the means of reaffirming ourselves but as reference points for discourse. After all, augmenting discourse is the raison d’etre for many a book’s creation and all books are a ‘speaking from’ whose voice is best found not in a sole utterance but as a mark within the discussion.

Intertwine: C.S. Lewis, Reading, and Atrophy of the Mind

Posted by jrlookingbill on 19/05/2012

While I ‘m working perhaps a bit too much, and making little headway in pursuit of my particular research interests, some little time is afforded me for reading. Perhaps I should spend such times in transit lesson-prepping instead, but I hope the exercise keeps me from turning dull. Last week I finished a book from my favorite Masters’ class (ironically an intensive I had to add for the purpose of graduating but simply so that I should have enough loans dispersed so as to be able to finish the course necessary for completion of my degree): Overcoming Onto-Theology by Merold Westphal.

There is much food for thought, some repeated a little too often, but on the whole I am remembering something of the language presented in that course on Philosophical Hermeneutics (because ‘interpretation’ just sounds too simple, and after all; Gadamer will demonstrate how interpretation never escapes, nor should it attempt to, its embeddedness in its Zeitpunkt (time/place, but the German adds a bite to my ticked ear). This poorly executed segue could, largely unbeknownst to its author, almost serve to illustrate the point Lewis wants to make in ‘Edmund Spenser, 1552-99’ as found in my current travel-mate: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1998), Cambridge U., by C.S.L.

What the revered Mr Lewis has to say about nearly any matter piques my interest, and I should say this is most true for the ways in which I yet find his writing a surprise not merely to be admired but worthy of being pondered at length. As regards Spenser, whose Faerie Queene I tackled because it fell within Lewis’ realm some years ago, I find C.S.L.’s reading sheds light on those qualities I had forgotten. Foremost is Spenser’s ‘polyphonic’ story-telling which surprisingly leaves Prince Arthur, his squire, and Sir Guyon in pursuit of an unknown damsel close-followed by a forester (the intrigue is ryp to be pickt) in favor of following the tale of a strange knight of whose character the reader is wholly unfamiliar.

In my own reading, I recall both my initial shock and my determination to await the inevitable ‘dovetail’ing where again I should meet the exploits of Arthur and his court. Lewis remarks that the “old polyphonic story…enjoyed a longer success than the modern novel has enjoyed yet” (Studies p. 134) and some of us might add our approval. While C.S.L. appeals to the renewal of a theme by a composer, he has addressed a reader too musically challenged to benefit. Thus I am only able to appreciate the simile theoretically where it might prove illustrative for one less impaired. But as a reader I share this appreciation for the complex, if not a mind skilled enough to wield it properly.

And so I nearly escape the charge that “this kind of suspense is lost on us because our bad memories frustrate it and when we get back to Arthur we have forgotten all about him, then, since our ancestors made no such objection, it would seem that we differ from them by an inferiority, not by a superiority” (Ibidem). I rather envy this skill of such readers – perhaps in such I am ‘behind my time’. But then, I suppose that is rather essential to any imaginative reading; for any reading that not only explains this world but carries us to another point, another space, another world is, to my mind, an attempt to leave this particular Zeitpunkt in favor of considering the world from another (and then, of course, returning with fresh eyes to see our own – no reading is a truly successful escape). That former minds were able to embed themselves so thoroughly in such a world, be it a land of faerie or whatever you will have, that their memory extends through the pages and cantos and Books that comprise a work like Faerie Queene illustrates a deficiency of my time.

Lewis takes this opportunity to aver that while the technologies of reading have improved, the faculty of memory has diminished. Where he points to “cheap paper, typewriters, notebooks, and indexes” as prime examples of what impairs our memories, just as “automobiles have made some people almost incapable of walking” (Studies p. 134), Lewis echoes Socrates’ complaints in Plato’s Phaedras about the book as destroyer of memory and anticipates Nicholas Carr’s ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid?’ – reading technologies have continued in progressively offering greater accessibility to resources for reading even as those technologies inhibit the practiced attention needed for higher order reasoning. In the same sense, the more accessible my destination is by motored vehicle the more effort I need to exert to fight atrophy (surely not a concern for my forebears).

It is in this sense that C.S.L. marks: “One of the great uses of literary history is to keep reminding us that while [humanity] is constantly acquiring new powers [it] is also constantly losing old ones” (Ibidem). But our tale need not end on such a negative note for Lewis believes that exercise of these faculties, however much more effort is required, can still be practiced to good effect. Just as the habit of walking will restore and strengthen our legs, the habit of reading works with ‘thickness’ or ‘density’ may expand our view so that we may not merely follow the immediate events of our stories, as we live them, but so we may be impressed of the conviction that other stories worth being told may break in and interrupt, or better intersect that which we thought worth our interest. The world of such poems is intricate enough that we should always be forced to leave one tale untold to consider the other, and I should think this true of our own world equally.

At such time, I shall take the ill-advised course of explaining how I inadvertently slipped into giving an example of what struck me in this writing. I have, of course, completely failed to consider in any depth the world opened by Westphal’s course. In truth, it is a story I have tried to begin more than once and I can but promise that this poor teller of tales would at least warn his reader against the notion that King Arthur’s court (or the likes of Heidegger, Derrida, and Nietzsche by way of M. Westphal) have left the pages of this sham world not to be summoned again, for there are ever more tales to be told (of faerie and wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewußtsein) if the reader will but follow along.

Try-ing—to-be—mis-under-stood

to what purpose?

Category Archives: Reading