Someone once said that in reading lies knowledge and in knowledge lies wisdom.
by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne in Montreal
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragon
April 23rd of every year has been designated World Book and Copyright Day by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) since 1995. One reason for selecting this particular day could be that it commemorates the death anniversary of two literary giants, Miguel de Cervantes, and William Shakespeare. This year the theme for the day is “to share a story” and the world book and copyright day city for 2021 is Tbilisi, capital of Georgia. The first city so recognized was Madrid in 2001. Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, on World Book and Copyright Day 2021 said, "The power of books must be fully harnessed. We must ensure their access so that everyone can take refuge in reading, and by doing so, be able to dream, learn and reflect".
There are some key words in the aforesaid paragraph which have special meaning in the context of our sequestration due to the ongoing pandemic. For one, the more literary minded among us would inevitably read more. Under these circumstances the quote by Cassandra Claire, that “only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry” becomes relevant. The key words are “share a story” and “dream, learn, and reflect”. As Charles W. Eliot said: “books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
As for sharing stories, this is what homo sapiens has been doing all along for 100,000 years ever since the species started creating symbolic art. Yuval Noah Harari, the celebrated historian says; “ we are the only mammals that can cooperate with numerous strangers because only we can invent numerous fictional stories, spread them around and convince millions of others to believe in them… indeed, Homo sapiens conquered this planet thanks above all to the unique human ability to create and spread fictions. We are the only mammals that can cooperate with numerous strangers because only we can invent fictional stories, spread them around, and convince millions of others to believe in them. As long as everybody believes in the same fictions, we all obey the same laws, and can thereby cooperate effectively.”
Arguably, some of the earliest justification for Harari’s statement could lie in ancient religious scriptures which are lessons taught through stories that have brought us together through reflection. These are beneficial for character building and serve as drivers toward a good life. However, on the other end is post truth, which is fiction that distort truth, calculated to appeal to emotion rather than sensibility. Then there is another type of story, related through the lens of the author’s creative imagination that profoundly affects us in the solitude of reading, and which seeps into the depth of our emotions and the range of our human experience. For want of a better word, let me call it “literature”. These are the stories that UNESCO is talking about.
Each of us has accumulated hundreds if not thousands of stories through books that we have read, that have, over the years molded our character and our values. We have developed a sense of loyalty through Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame and Dickens’ Sydney Carton of The Tale of Two Cities; a sense of autonomous categorical imperative through Dostoevsky’s Alyosha from The Brothers Karamazov; a sense of human frailty from Tolstoy’s Father Sergius and Anna Karenina; and the vicissitudes of social status from Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard and the irony of life from Maugham’s Razor’s Edge. We have reflected on the value of forgiveness from Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter and the elegance and marvel of nature through Michener’s Hawaii. Through Robert Hugh’s Fatal Shore, we explored the magic of descriptive language. Our lives have become a crucible of virtue and knowledge through these wondrous works. We learnt mystery from The Woman in White of Willkie Colins and Wuthering Heights of Emily Bronte, not to mention Jane Austen’ s Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.
Someone once said that in reading lies knowledge and in knowledge lies wisdom. The late Harold Bloom, former Professor of Literature at Yale University in his book Where Shall Wisdom be Found gives three criteria that may lead us to books that offer us value: aesthetic splendor; intellectual power; and wisdom. Bloom discusses the wisdom of Shakespeare’s monologues and de Cervantes’ dialogues as means that can accrue wisdom in the reader’s mind but at the same time does not have any claims to pretension that he knows what wisdom is. He merely points the way to each of us to find our own wisdom, as the Buddha did in indicating the righteous path.
I believe that the greatest ability books endow us with is the wisdom of predictive intelligence which can be attenuated by delving into the minds of authors through their characters, whether it be the caprice of Micawber or mendacity of Uriah Heap in Dickens’ David Copperfield or the evil of Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist by the same author or for that matter the duplicity reflected in The Eustace Diamonds of Trollope.
Of the modern writers, we are struck by Ishiguro’s melancholic resignation of life that ends without resolution and the fatalism of Murakami. All these writers offer different perspectives of life calculated to invoke in us the necessary wisdom we need to confront the mendacity and vapid frivolity of the world and to obviate the most insidious human quality – manipulation and exploitation – in our lives. Books also teach us to address arrogance and ego with understanding and vacuums of integrity with autonomous determination and virtue.
The love of books should be inculcated in the inchoate mind by wise parents and supplemented by teachers of like mind. Books provide us with a sense of purpose, a sense of direction and above all a sense of dignity that we owe ourselves. They provide lessons, advice, and tools to reasonably predict the outcome of our actions. They open a new world – a world that would help us understand the arcane world we live in - so that we could leave behind a legacy of value when we ultimately pay the penalty of being born.
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