my brain feels sort of rattly this morning. henry is cutting some back teeth and seems to think sleeping is optional. but i still want to discuss cracroft’s article. maybe the rest of you can fill in the holes.
cracroft reminds me that i have my own inner mrs. grundy: i remember turning my back for the entire 3 or so hours when my sixth grade teacher decided to show “dances with wolves.” i remember blanching (and distinctly hating) “catcher in the rye” when it was forced on me in junior high. i had to whip myself through “invisible man” in high school. [although, i was naive enough that i often didn't understand what was going on.]
i was never one to censor library books with a sharpie, but i remember asking myself now and then how my teachers could ask me to read such “godless filth and trash.”
it’s not the sort of thing that you can date, but during my college courses in comparative literature, english, etc. i started to realize that books are, as cracroft writes, “significant expression of significant human experience.” it wasn’t until i read “paradise lost” that i understood what the war in heaven could have looked like. it wasn’t until i read “the mayor of casterbridge” that i could see the real power of an infinite atonement. it wasn’t until i read “richard III” that i crawled inside pure evil and felt a modicum of empathy.
as i confronted hundreds of experiences completely other to my sensibilities, i changed. i continue to change. and this is a good thing.
as cracroft points out, “we walk in twilight in a fallen world and that it is a ‘contradiction in terms,’ … ‘to attempt a sinless literature of sinful man.’” and, really, the only way i want to become acquainted with my fellow “sinful man” is through literature. there i can discover the world. thoughtfully. at my own pace. with a mug of hot chocolate.
i think i’ve said it before, but i don’t mind repeating myself. books are vital. reading is vital. we have to stave off the horror of a generation who only uses their opposable thumbs to type out half words on a tiny little screen.
we must continue to read.
read deeply widely madly.
what do you think?
I read the Cracroft article and Jessie’s comments and I agree that reading is important. I love how Jessie said that she would rather become acquainted with “sinful man” through literature than any other way. Learning to read and digest all sorts of material is key to individual development. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to read something in school that wasn’t potentially uplifting and educational. That being said, there are reading materials out there (I wouldn’t necessarily call some of it literature) that probably ought to be avoided. How do you determine when something is best left untouched? Does it have to do with the intent of the author? The effect of the material has on you? Are there things some people should avoid that others may be fine reading? What do you think?
I don’t know where to start (especially since I’m the first to comment). I really enjoyed the article – it opened my eyes to a few things.
I’ve never been a Mrs. Grundy, in fact, I was quite the opposite – never much concerned about “bad stuff” in books. I have read many books that I wouldn’t suggest to the Relief Society president, but those books have taught me so much. I’ve learned about life, choices, consequences, responsibility. I feel like they enriched my life, therefore, they are of value.
I also enjoyed the quote from Paul, “unto the pure, all things are pure”. What a beautiful thought. I wonder how that can translate to reading – I know that I skip/skim/glance through portions/words/paragraphs that I would rather not read, understanding the point without wallowing in the details. I get frustrated when I feel those things are added to titillate rather than to instruct, but when they are needed and make a point, they can be powerful.
I read an article in college by Orson Scott Card that was similar to this one. He talked about “moral art”. According to him, truth is what makes a work “moral”, and anything that does not portray truth is “immoral”. So, works of pornography are obviously immoral because they do not portray truth. On the other hand, some books/art just ignore the evil/bad side of life and only portray the good – these are also immoral. Just something to think about.
It also reminds me of Katherine Patterson (Jessie can help me with the title of the book I read this in…I can’t remember) explaining why she writes books for children that include swearing, death, and other things that you may not expect to find in children’s novels even though she is a devout Christian. She explained that she does it because it’s true. It’s life. Kids are exposed to that every day and they need to learn how to deal with it in a positive way.
I’ll comment again when others have had a chance to submit their own.
amen and amen. It might be because I was child number eight and watched ‘the man with the one red shoe’ at age 5, and ‘top gun’ at age 8, heard first hand, from my sister’s journal, what it fells like to get kissed and be ‘in love,’ but when my class was assigned to read ‘Catcher in the Rye’ I didn’t think anything of it- I didn’t like the book- but I can’t imagine that Salinger wrote it with the intent that it would be near and dear to a 15 year old girls heart the way ‘little women’ would be.
The first book I remember reading was not one from the ‘Dick and Jane’ series but the sop opera book ‘Sara’ about a school girl who became pregnant. I devoured the book. How else could I learn about such things? My own mother didn’t say a word to me after our 6th grade maturation presentation. Somehow those things just never got spoken of in my conservative home- unless it was a book discussion. At sixteen my mother recommended many titles to me that were a little scarlet in their love stories but when given the backdrop of an 9th century history novel who would criticize?
Perhaps my desensitized, free spirited reading has its hazards for example my selection for a book discussion in a women’s club was meet with a little hostility by one Mrs. Grundy. I spouses I should have been sensitive to “godless filth and trash” in my selection. I agree with you Jessie and Mr. Cracroft – we can not “attempt a sinless literature.” It would not be real.
Perhaps the more one reads the more one realizes that literature is life. I am reminded of the movie ‘You’ve got mail,’ when Kathleen Kelly says, “so often life reminds me of what I read in a book, when really shouldn’t it be the other way around?” Do we read to learn about our own life or to step out of it for a few moments and into Elizabeth’s world of passion and propriety, to take up Dagney Taggart’s, “who is John Galt?’ and leave our hard to answer questions behind, do we plunge into Harry’s robes and take on his dementors to take leave of our own?
I admit that my Rob can relate to Cracroft’s Janice- there are many nights that go by without darkness. Does anyone know where I can get a good book light?
i can’t stop thinking about this. i’ve been wondering how i went from being the little girl so entirely prudish to being the not so little girl who didn’t mind that one of the actors in a london production of “measure for measure” didn’t wear anything for the climatic scene. [and it's oh-so-interesting to me that none of you seemed to have been as mrs. grundy-ish as i was.]
i spent so much time when i was younger thinking about rules. rules were really important to me. there were rules about what you could see and couldn’t see. what you could say and couldn’t say. what you could ask and couldn’t ask. i’m not even sure where all of the rules came from. maybe some of them stem from my religious upbringing. but not all of them. they couldn’t possibly. [at least, i don't think there are any rules about how to arrange your stuffed animal kingdom.]
but now that i’ve given this some more thought, i’ve realized that it was because of reading, because of books, that my world cracked open. books helped me see that my rules weren’t _the_ rules. that there was good and truth and beauty and life to be found in all sorts of places. words are miracles. if they could change a tight-wad little mind like mine, they can do anything. and i think that’s a good thing.
I think I was a little Grundy-ish, or maybe a lot Grundy-ish, and I think I started to change in college and then even more after I became friends with Jared. I feel like my eyes were opened, that they’re still being opened. And sometimes I don’t like it, but I feel like I’m learning so many important things, like everyone has said. The world has bad stuff in it, but I don’t think hiding from it is the best way to come closer to God. I loved that Cracroft’s five steps culminated in increased conversion and the ability to see everything in a cosmic light. Cool.
Rules: I was a ruled little girl and teenager, too, and I think books really did help me see the world outside of those rules without having to break them myself.
And, as if I didn’t already read too much, I’m even more thirsty for books after reading that. Thanks, Jessie, it was lovely.
I’m a little late entering this conversation, but here’s my two cents.
I actually took a English/Religion class at BYU that dealt specifically with this question–how do you find that standard of what you will read or won’t read? (To tell the truth, a 4 month class on the one question was a bit of overkill, but I digress) And our grand answer to the question? It depends.
For our final in the class, we each had to write our “personal guidelines” and then share them with the class. And while there were many similarities (we were all seniors in the English major, and fairly open-minded), there were some very stark differences, which, as I suspect, there should be. I guess that is the beauty of agency–we are able to decide what we want and are willing to handle. However, we must be sure that that personal knowledge doesn’t spill over in our perceptions of others, which is something that I am often guilty of. (I’m working on it, I promise.)
There have been many instances where I’ve seen someone refuse to read something or other and I’ve thought–Why? There’s nothing wrong with that book! Open your mind! I have to remind myself that what I feel I can handle is not the same as others. While I feel comfortable skipping over some choice words or scenes, others may simply choose to avoid them altogether. That is their right, no matter how much I think they are missing. And that’s tough for me. Because I agree with Jessie–we must read. We absolutely must. I just hope that in my small sphere of influence that I can help others to realize that.
I agree with KT – we need to decide for ourselves, not for others. I am able to read almost any book I choose to read – and I choose to read books that are of value, even if they contain material that is questionable. However, I am not able to watch movies with those same qualifications. There are many movies that I wish I could see because others have told me of their value, but I know that they have some questionable scenes. I am able to filter when I read books, but not when I watch movies. Images and sounds affect me in ways that I do not want to be affected. So, I do try to understand when someone else says the same thing about books (even if it’s hard for me to accept!).