Commitment to Reading

Not all books are created equal; some take far longer to read than others. How much time can you invest in a book before the gains of reading it are lost? If you’re like me and have a stack of books waiting to be read plus a list of books waiting to be added to the stack, do you have a cut-off point at which you abandon one book in favor of another? I’m currently reading The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer, a book that spent about a year in my stack prior to reaching the top. Now that it’s there, I’m wondering how much more time to put into it. It’s a slow read – I’ve made it through 175 pages in about ten days – and, at 825 pages, it’s a formidable read at that. It is an interesting book, along the lines of The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell and The Histories by Herodotus, but it isn’t much of a page turner. I know this book has an intrinsic value, but is it worth the time I’m committing to it? I took a full month one summer to read The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and I wouldn’t trade that reading experience for four of lesser quality. I didn’t feel bad about putting down The Host after the first 90 pages, but it hadn’t been on my list for more than a year like The Golden Bough has been. I’m the type of reader who feels committed to the book at hand, even if there are other worthy selections waiting in the stack. Is reading a mental exercise, with some endurance training necessary, or is it an economic transaction, with a balance of time and money invested compared to the benefit yielded? Or is it more simple than that – if you don’t feel inclined to continue reading a book, should you?

Suspended Disbelief

Why storytellers can’t come up with a better way to describe this key element of what they do, I don’t know, but, as clunky as it sounds, suspended disbelief is important. My friend Ryan is a pilot and an engineer, so when he sees a trailer for the Iron Man movie that depicts the hero in flight evading jets, he immediately begins calculating the fuel burn rate compared to the storage capacity of Iron Man’s armor. I don’t know what it would take to sustain that speed in a suit of armor, but I do know it’s not enough to suspend my friend’s disbelief. I have a similar problem with the new Indiana Jones movie: in the third film, Indy drank from the Holy Grail and became immortal. That kind of takes the suspense out of his next adventure, doesn’t it? Am I to believe his life is in jeopardy, or am I to believe he found the true grail? It would seem the storytellers put themselves in a bind. Without suspended disbelief, a story falls flat.

This also applies to books, of course. When my young nephew read my book Orlando and Geoffrey he went outside and attempted to replicate one of Orlando’s physical feats. He failed in the attempt, as he does not share Orlando’s physical characteristics, but up to that point his disbelief had been suspended. I recently had a similar experience, although I didn’t go so far as to attempt the actual feat. I just read Mistborn: The Final Empire, the first book in a series by Brandon Sanderson. I was impressed by the practical system of magic that Sanderson devised in Elantris, and he outdid himself with the new system employed in Mistborn. The new system, Allomancy, is based on using the properties of certain metals and their alloys to accomplish specific feats, which, though magical, still follow the laws of physics. As I read I found myself wishing I was able to Ironpull, to feel the satisfying smack of a metal object summoned into my hand. I never actually attempted it, but it was a powerful desire. Sanderson succeeded in suspending my disbelief, and for that I call him by that most magical appellation: Storyteller.

Universal Appeal

After reading a healthy dose of non-fiction, I’m ready for another science fiction binge. Coincidentally, one of yesterday’s new releases was The Host by Stephenie Meyer. I’m one of the minority of readers in Utah who has not read her immensely popular Twilight series for young adults, so I had no expectations that might affect my opinion of her first book for adults. I checked out a copy yesterday and began reading it on my lunch break.

As a bookseller, one is forced to accept the realization that not every book is right for every reader. A good bookseller is a matchmaker in a sense, using their first-hand knowledge to match the right book to the right reader. A book can be like one of Meyer’s alien souls, moving in and taking possession of the reader’s mind. Sometimes the soul and its host are a good match, and other times they are not. This book is not a good match for me. I do not doubt that it will be right for many, many people, but I will have to remain in the minority on this one. I read the first 90 pages before deciding to stop. Rather than reading Meyer, I am turning to another LDS writer of science fiction: Brandon Sanderson. I enjoyed his Elantris and have successfully matched it to other readers. His Mistborn series has been steadily moving up my reading list, and I’m ready to see if it is a match.

The Irony of American History review

I already had on file most of the quote from Reinhold Niebuhr which I used in my last post when I came across The Irony of American History (University of Chicago Press, $17.00) in a spring catalog, so my interest was already piqued. Sagely seizing on that interest, my venerable sales rep Henry J. Hubert sent me a copy to review. I’m glad I chose to order it before I reviewed it, because I can add it to our staff picks shelf immediately.

This is a timely reissue of a book originally published in 1952. Due to Barack Obama identifying Niebuhr as one of his favorite philosophers, attention has once again been directed to the writings of this once influential theologian, and rightfully so. Niebuhr’s purpose in identifying the ironic forces at play in American history is to increase awareness of them, as awareness of irony dispels it. The book collects a pair of lectures Niebuhr delivered in 1949 and 1951 regarding the danger of American polemics which elevated American democracy by vilifying communism. Niebuhr does define the evil traits of communism, but the focus of his lectures was a clarion call to American policymakers to forsake the Messianic complex that developed along with the opposition to communism.

In the one and only creative writing class I took in college, I wrote a short story that involved the Russian mafia presence in Miami. My classmates could have pointed out any one of the multiple flaws and failings of that story, but instead their comments were limited to the fact that the Cold War was over and I needed to update my antagonists from Russians to terrorists. If that was the feeling in the late 90s, how could a Cold War-era book on communism be timely today? Niebuhr deems communism, though officially atheist, as functioning as a fanatical religion, and treats it accordingly. One need only substitute the term terrorism for communism and The Irony of American History comes across as a new release rather than a re-release.

The similarities are uncanny: the folly of a preemptive war, the misguided notion of spreading democracy in totalitarian agrarian nations, and the delusions of a powerful nation believing it is the master of its own destiny are all discussed. In the wake of 9/11, Niebuhr’s speculation that a skyscraper could symbolize the Tower of Babel and thus become a target for destruction is downright eerie. In the book’s introduction, Andrew J. Bacevich refers to Niebuhr as a prophet, and hindsight would seem to concur. Bacevich’s statement that The Irony of American History is the “most important book ever written on U.S. foreign policy” struck me as hyperbole, as it comes in the second paragraph of the introduction, but, although I still wouldn’t agree with it, it wasn’t as much of a sticking point for me after I read the book. It is unfortunate that our current administration is still operating under the influence of ironic forces, but that may change with the next administration, and that is encouraging.

Quote of the Day

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.”

Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History