Alan Jacobs

Alan Jacobs, English prof at Wheaton College in suburban Chicago (where I went to grad school and where, if you're ever giving a graduation commencement address, you need to distinguish from the school of the same name in Massachusetts) is one of my favorite writers.  His newest book, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, is on my short list of titles I most want to read.

Jacobs, an immensely wide read and greatly learned man, spurns the idea of must read great books.  As the title of his latest book shows, books should be read not only for personal education or making us "cultured" (a word that surely no one who actually fits the description would actually use) but for the simple pleasure of reading.  Check out this speech.


Alan Jacobs discusses 'The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction' from The New Atlantis on Vimeo.

Man of Letters

"I'm sorry my letters are so short compared with yours, but I'm afraid this is an irremovable difference between the sexes--women love letter writing and men loathe it.  And there is so much other writing in my day's work!" (104)

So says C. S. Lewis.  He may have hated it but he sure did a lot of it.  Such a well known author received heaps of letters from admirers, and Lewis was diligent to answer them.  Letters to an American Lady contains his thirteen year correspondence with one particular American woman (who remained anonymous) whom he never met in this life.  These letters, which Lewis obviously never knew would be published, reveal a personal side of the great Medieval and Renaissance literary scholar, children's author, and popular theologian.

At times we see vintage Lewis:

"Sleep is a jade who scorns her suitors but woos her scorners" (23).

"But I have long known that the talk about Brotherhood, wherever it occurs, in America or here, is hypocrisy.  Or rather, the man who talks it means 'I have no superiors':  he does not mean 'I have no inferiors'.  How loathsome it all is!" (43).

"My brother heard a woman on a 'bus say, as the 'bus passed a church with a Crib outside it, 'Oh Lor'!  They bring religion into everything.  Look--they're dragging it even into Christmas now!"  (80).

"But I'm afraid as we grow older life consists more and more in either giving up things or waiting for them to be taken from us . . ." (95).

"Yes, it is strange that anyone should dislike cats.  But cats themselves are the worst offenders in this respect.  They very seldom seem to like one another" (105). 

And then we see letters like this, written two days after his wife's death.

"I've just got your letter of the 12th.  Joy died on the 13th.  I can't describe the apparent unreality of my life since then.  She received absolution and died at peace with God.  I will try to write again when I have more command of myself.  I'm like a sleep-walker at the moment.  God bless" (91).

I for one am thankful for this woman's decision to preserve and share these private letters.

Ask Jeeves

A name has floated in and out of my gravitational field recently.  Perhaps it's always been there, like a distant planet or black hole that no one's ever been able to find with a telescope but we know it's there because of the gravitational effect it has on the other planets.  I've finally fixed my telescope on him.

P. G. Wodehouse:  1881-1975, English humorist, and, as everyone who reads him says, a master of the English language.  Jeeves and the Tie That Binds, which I found at the Printers Row Lit Fest a few weeks ago, was delightful.  The plot was entertaining but doesn't really matter.  It involved an election, theft, petty revenge, a sleeping cat, unwise engagements, and a stolen book.  The core of the book is in (a) the characters and (b) the language.

(a) The Characters.  This is one of a series of books telling the adventures of Bertie Wooster and his butler Jeeves.  Bertie is a blundering, silly aristocrat who always manages to get himself in ridiculous predicaments (in this case, engaged to a woman he despises and falsely accused of theft).  The omniscient and omnicompetent Jeeves reads Shakespeare and philosophy for pleasure and always gets his master out of his scrapes.  The play between the two is golden.

So is (b) the language.  Take these lines:

"Hullo, aged relative."  "Hullo to you, you young blot.  Are you sober?" (16)

"I found myself of two minds.  On the one hand I felt a pang of regret for having missed what had all the earmarks of having been a political meeting of the most rewarding kind [because it ended in a food-throwing riot]; on the other, it was like rare and refreshing fruit to hear that Spode had got hit in the eye with a potato.  I was conscious of awed respect for the marksman who had accomplished this feat.  A potato, being so nobbly in shape, can be aimed accurately only by a master hand." (180)

"I sat up and eased the spine into the pillows.  I was conscious of a profound peace.  'Jeeves,' I said, 'I am conscious of a profound peace.'" (202-203).

Quite fun.

Swords, Stones, and Civil-War-Starting Affairs

Some books I like a lot.  Other books I don't like much at all.  Then there are some books which I can't decide if I like them or not.

T. H. White's The Once and Future King falls into this last category.  The most important book of 20th century Arthurian fantasy (a sub-genre of fantasy literature), The Once and Future King tells the story of King Arthur, Merlyn, Lancelot, and Guenever, but with modern revisions of the classic tale.  The book is divided into four sections.  The first, "The Sword in the Stone," was adapted into the Disney movie of the same name (which I haven't seen in a long time).

I'm not familiar with all the details of Arthurian legend, so I can't tell what White has re-envisioned or changed from such "canonical" Arthur texts like Thomas Malory's 15th century work Morte d-Arthur.  Some points I'm pretty confident are White's own creation.  

Merlyn, for example, while still a wizard, garners much of his power and wisdom from the fact that he lives backwards (albeit still with a very long life span).  He grows increasingly younger rather than older.  Thus, the future for Arthur is the past for Merlyn, and he knows what has happened in the historical past yet hasn't experienced it.  Such "back sight" confuses him now and again.

Arthur's desire to create a just and peaceful society under the rule of law is the thread that pulls everything together.  The England of Arthur's childhood is a violent world in which the knights and barons terrorize the lowly serf.  The Round Table is Arthur's attempt to harness their violent impulses for good ends.  War turns from a gentleman's game (in which poor people suffer the most) into real crusades against tyrants.  This aim grows throughout Arthur's reign and culminates in his creation of a coherent law and judicial system which no one, including the king, is above.

Yet it's all nearly undone by the famous love affair between Lancelot and Guenever.  Neither intends to hurt Arthur--Lancelot is Arthur's lifelong best friend--yet their relationship turns into a self-destructive tragedy.  Mordred, the story's biggest antagonist and Arthur's illegitimate son, exploits their affair out of spite to his father.  As the affair is technically treasonous, and the law requires their executions, Arthur's hand is forced to enforce justice against his wife and best friend.  Lancelot rescues his lover from the hangman's noose, yet in the process unintentionally slays some of his best friends and greatest supporters.  

Peace deteriorates as Arthur's objective commitment to justice and bad blood between the English and the Celts (going back hundreds of years) lead England into civil war between Arthur and Lancelot.  Amidst this confusion Mordred (who identifies with his mother's Celtic affiliations) claims that both Arthur and Lancelot have died and declares himself king in England.  The book ends with Arthur waging war against his own son.  Some hope remains--Arthur commands a page to flee the ensuing battle to safety where he can reinvigorate Arthur's vision for a peaceful, just society--yet the story remains a tragedy.

All of what I've just described was compelling and entertaining.  But I'm still not sure if I liked the book.  It could have been 200 pages shorter.  All kinds of side stories muddled the plot, and at several points I looked forward to getting done with the book so I could move on to something else.

Still, some passages were gems.  This one, describing Lancelot's inner guilt from his affair with Guenever right before he performs his long-desired miracle, was my favorite.

Do you think it would be fine to be the best knight in the world?  Think, then, also, how you would have to defend the title.  Think of the tests, such repeated, remorseless, scandal-breathing tests, which day after day would be applied to you--until the last and certain day, when you would fail.  Think also that you know of a good reason for your failure, which you have tried to hide, tried pathetically to hide and overlook, for five and twenty years.  Think that you are now to go out, before the largest and most honourable gallery that can be assembled, to make a public demonstration of your sin.  They are expecting you to succeed, and you are to fail:  you are to publish the deceit which you have practised for a quarter of a century, and they will all immediately know the reason for it--that reason of shame which you have sought to conceal from your own mind, and which, when it has remembered itself in the silence of your empty chamber, has pricked you into a physical motion of your head to throw it off.  Miracles, which you wanted to do so long ago, can only be done by the pure in heart.  The people outside are waiting for you to do this miracle because you have traded on their belief that your heart was pure--and now, with treachery and adultery and murder wringing the heart like a cloth, you are to go out into the sunlight for the test of honour (542).

A Parable

The hero crosses the threshold of the house.  His family greets him with joyful acclaim.  A fresh laurel wreath is placed over his head.  He returns these affections, yet the hero is tired.

As the potentiality of the automobile inexorably moves down the assembly line, as the asteroid half-heartedly resists the black hole's gravitational pull, so his body mindlessly succumbs to the arm chair's call.  The cushions remember his form and welcome him into their kind embraces.  His book and reading glasses lie just within arm's reach.

The bookmark has been faithful to its calling, and the hero finds his place.  He reads:  "The King, whose face had begun to look more haggard, sighed and. . . ."

"Jump, Daddy?"

"Ok, buddy."  The hero sets his book aside and positions himself to receive, with the least amount of pain, the projectile missile which his son's body.

The scene eventually ends, and he returns to his book.  "The King, whose face had begun to look more haggard, sighed and. . . ."

"Book?  Peez, Daddy.  Boo Train Green Train?"

The hero hates Blue Train, Green Train.  He's read it aloud seventy times seven.  Pieces of his soul break off with each reading.  Yet he has been gone all day, and his wife could use a little help.  "Ok, buddy."

Three other life-killing board books later, the hero finds his friend, patient as an oak tree, lying at the side.  "The King, whose face had begun to look more haggard, sighed and. . . ."

"Honey, will you take out the trash?"

"Of course," he says with outer enthusiasm and inner resignation.  The hero does not read much today.  His blog is neglected once again.

Kick-starting your reading

An old friend asked for reading suggestions to get back into reading.  I think the best place to begin is with the authors or types of books you already enjoy.  So if you enjoy C. S. Lewis, read other books by C. S. Lewis.  Here are some suggestions for various genres (in no order whatsoever):

Contemporary Fiction:  Richard Russo, Empire Falls

Science Fiction:  Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

Fantasy:  J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (like I was going to suggest anything else)

Young Adult:  J. K. Rowling, the Harry Potter series (though a fair case can be made that these are not actually, or at least exclusively, young adult books)

Classic American Fiction:  Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories


Mystery:  Agatha Christie, The ABC Murders


Biography:  William Manchester, The Last Lion:  Winston Spencer Churchill


Theology:  J. I. Packer, Knowing God


Sports:  Eliot Asinof, Eight Men Out:  The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series


Classic English Fiction:  Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice


Classic English Translation Fiction:  Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment


Popular History:  Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City

Inclement weather and confusingly small zeros

The fates conspired against our trip to the Printers Row Lit Fest.  I slept poorly the night before, work was a bit rough, the little guy had to be traded off between us so the other could look for books, and the bottom fell out of the skies.

But it wasn't a total waste, and Edwards' weekend adventures are always hoppin'.  We came out with a few books for Duncan, and I picked up Jeeves and the Tie That Binds by P. G. Wodehouse, an author I've been meaning to read.

I couldn't land my first choice, a first edition of Winston Churchill's My African Journey.  I opened the cover, observed the price, and handed the book to the seller for purchase.  Here follows the subsequent conversation.

Bookseller:  "Do you know how much this costs?"
Me:  "Eight dollars, I think it said."
Bookseller:  "It's actually eight hundred."
Me:  "Oh."  Awkward pause.  "That's a bit out of my price range."  

Printers Row Lit Fest

Every book lover in the Chicago area should make plans to attend the Printers Row Lit Fest this Saturday and Sunday.  Dearborn Street between Harrison and Polk will close to traffic as 150 booksellers, 200 authors, and masses of people descend for panel discussions, workshops, lectures, readings, and--most importantly--buying books.  Visit the link below for more info.

Imagine the heavenly scene:  dozens of used book stores congregating on one street.  We attended on two previous occasions when we lived out in Wheaton, and we'll be hitting it up tomorrow with Duncan, a book lover himself, in tow.  See you there my friends.

It Begins

Alan Jacobs' criticisms of official lists of must read books notwithstanding, I've begun my Quarterly Classics series with The Illiad.  My copy is an 1898 edition in William Cullen Bryant's translation.  Picked it up at a library used book rack back in Wheaton I think.  No clue if it's a good translation.  You tell me:

O Goddess! sing the wrath of Peleus' son,
Achilles; sing the deadly wrath that brought
Woes numberless upon the Greeks, and swept
To Hades many a valiant soul, and gave
Their limbs a prey to dogs and birds of air,--
For so had Jove appointed,--from the time
When the two chiefs, Atrides, kings of men,
And great Achilles, parted first as foes.