Re-Visiting Old
Favorite
Authors
Sunday, November 25, 2007
I love to
re-read books. I have several favorites I have read so many times
I've had to replace the books because they have literally fallen
apart.
When I was
little my mother used to chastise me if I turned down the corner of a
page or wrote in a book because she used to say, "Books are your friends
and you shouldn't treat your friends like that." She was right and
she was wrong. It is true that one should not abuse and disfigure
one's friends. However, turning down corners, marking up books,
filling them with post-it notes and highligting is not abusive to
books. It is rather the way we honor them. Marking up a
book, re-reading it, savoring it and engaging it in a conversation is
not abusive to the book. It is more like kneading dough, tempering steel
or lifting weights to build muscle; it may be laborious and even
painful, but it is ultimately beneficial. It strenghthens the
reader's relationship with the book. Marking up and manhandling a
book in the process of enjoying it many times is not a bad thing because
the book is not my friend. The author is my friend. The book is
the venue for my engagement with the author.
Authors are
not merely people whom I admire or aspire to be like. They are my
friends and mentors. I have written about that before.
This week I
had the occasion to encounter an old long-lost friend, with interesting
results. My daughter was supposed to read "The
Fountainhead" last year in her English class. She bought the book,
but I know she did not read it. The other day I was looking
for cloth napkins in the closet where we keep a lot of my books, along
with towels, tablecloths, napkins, cleaning supplies, toilet paper,
craft supplies and other stuff we don't know what else to do
with. I can't call it a "junk closet" because it contains a
lot of really important items we use on a daily basis. It's
sort of the most centrally located storge place in the house where we
keep the really essential things. That may be why so
many books ended up there.
In any case,
while looking for clean napkins for the Thanksgiving table, I ran
across Daughter Dear's copy of "The Fountainhead". I don't know
when she put it there, but I know why. She keeps "her" books in her
room. This one was an abandoned orphan, left in Mom's book shelf
because she never wanted to see it again (as if she ever opened it to
begin with, which I doubt).
I think I
picked it up every time I opened the closet all weekend. Yesterday,
I gave in to the urge. Right now I am on page 165.
I had
read the novel when I was in the ninth grade, along with "We
The Living" (which I didn't like) and "Atlas Shrugged" which I read
several times between ninth grade and high school graduation, but have
not re-read since (I'm considering rectifying that). In Junior High, I
participated in a weekly discussion group about Ayn Rand's novels and
her philosophy. The leader of the discussions was the ninth grade
science teacher who was the one encouraging the students to read
the books in the first place. That turned out to be one of
those life-altering experiences that should be part of
the educational process. There were only two girls in the
group. One who had a terrible crush on the science teacher, and me. (I
had a crush on him, too, but that wasn't the only reason I participated
in the group: I had actually read the damned books!) The others
were science-nerd boys who were mainly there because the same teacher
was the advisor for the rocket club, which was what they were really
passionate about, and I think they were trying to be supportive of their
mentor. Even so, something of Rand's philosophy and our
discussions about it trickled into my psyche.
I was thrilled when
my daughter told me she was supposed to read Ayn Rand. Partly because
I know that a teacher who expects students to grapple with Rand's
ideas really gives a damn about the students' education, and
partly because I would love for my Daughter to be inspired by Rand's
writing. [Oh, well, one out of two.... ]
I had not read
anything by Ayn Rand since perhaps my junior year in high school. That
timing is significant because it was in my junior year of high school
that I had a profoundly mystical religious experience that changed the
future course of my life. Ayn Rand's anti-religious philosophy
seemed at the time to be incompatible with the new trajectory
of my life. I moved on to other
things. Somehow in all these intervening years, I came to
view Ayn Rand as a writer of young adult literature whose
work I had cherished as a kid, but which I had outgrown.
Where the hell I got the idea that Ayn Rand was a YA writer, I have no
idea, other than the fact that since I read her when I was 13 and
abandoned her by the time I was 16, I somehow concluded she was
writing for a young audience.
A lot has
changed in me and in the world since I last encountered Howard Roark in
the late 1960's. Howard is the same, God bless him. I
expected to find the novel dated. After all, it was published
in 1943. That was before television, never mind personal computers and
PDA's with GPS and email. I am amazed to find it does not seem
dated at all. There is still something compelling about the
passion of the writing. The characters are as wooden and
stereotypical as ever. The writing is as forced and stilted. The
interpersonal storylines are as hackneyed and/or stereotypical.
There is so much wrong with the book, I'd love to toss it aside and give up on it.
I might do
that except for two things. The
first shattering revelation to me is how deeply I have been influenced
by this body of work. That may sound strange coming from someone
who has spent probably 35 of the last 39 years as a dedicated
Church Lady. Rand's ultra-rationalist ideas would seem to fly in
the fact of my entire life since I was first introduced to her work
but I have absolutely no problem
reconciling Rand's ultra-rationalism with my mysticism. For
me mysticism is totally rational. That's the problem I have
with religion. Religion, particularly Christianity, seeks
to be something other than rational. It seeks to make Idols and
Truth out of things that don't make sense. Mysticism is utterly
and completely rational, unemotional and non-manipulative. It
is what it is. It is Truth for the person in the moment. It is subject
to change. Mystical revelation should not (but often
is) considered 'universal' truth. It isn't even 'eternal'
truth for the person receiving it. It is simply the 'truth
only for you and only for now'.
The
second reason I can't
just toss it aside is that Rand is an amazingly engaging writing.
I labored for years under the assumption that Ayn Rand
was a bad writer. Her writing does have deep flaws. But,
I am amazed to re-discover, she can grab my attention and hold
onto it. She can suck me into the story and take me for a
ride. She can draw me into the world of her story and make me a
witness to the events she describes. That's exactly what I would
love to be able to do as a writer!
Even without any of those things, it's cool to reconnect with an old
friend, even if only briefly and in
passing.