What Is A Real Book?

Opening Remarks

A partial answer was offered to the question What is a real book? in our previous entry. So today I’ll extend the answer, reminding the reader that this response is in no way exhaustive.

In fact, while we're at it, everything I write is best viewed as an interim report, the purpose of which being to direct attention to something worthing talking about and considering on one's own.

So, with that in mind, I'll offer some short answers now as a way to get us started. As I said in Why Read?, a real book is a classic, the best of its kind, and as such, a valuable resource that one can return to again and again. A real book, or, a great book, is an aid, a form of guidance that can help the reader in many ways.

It offers incalculable and infinite riches, not only because it leads to more books, but, because it's the gateway to a deeper, fuller life than the one we had before we became devoted readers of real books. In short, real books make us want to live.

I

Ok. That's all well and good. But how about some specifics?

The first way a real book serves its reader is by connecting them with the past by connecting them with the emotions that moved the writer and might now move the reader. We begin to experience life in another world that is, in a strange way, as much like our own as it is different. That’s an interesting experience in itself. It’s mind-traveling in both time and space.

This kind of historical reading helps us develop an imagination and empathy that can be used in the present with those around us or those we might come in contact with in our travels, or, given the extraordinary movement of peoples today, those from other parts of the world who might live next door.

The next use of a classic, or, a real book, is that it teaches us how to read, in the fullest sense of the word, thoroughly and intelligently. Because a real book is so filled with life, with ideas, because it emerged from a different time and place, it is hard to read, "hard" as in difficult and challenging, in the same way anything truly good for us is often hard, whether it’s climbing a mountain, or learning how to compose music, play an instrument, raise a family, or run a company.

The attitude of mind and the attention needed to read a newspaper or online article is not good enough for reading a real book. Not even close. Which is why most people don’t like reading real books. It’s why they find such books “boring.” Of course, having no way of knowing how boring a real book is, since they haven’t read any, chances are great that it’s not the book that’s boring.

Be that as it may, the point is, when we read an article, even one on current events having to do with something we consider important, we read by running our eyes over the print without stopping to think or consider what we’re reading.

The reading material was chosen exactly so it could be read in that way, quick and effortless. For such readers, the harder it is to understand, in other words, the more interesting and challenging, the faster it's either neglected, or disposed of entirely. In other words, the way anyone chooses any form of entertainment.

Note: Judging from the divorce rate and collapse of the family, this is how many people choose their spouse, or treat their children. No doubt, these are the same people who find real books "boring."

In any event, the problem is, as with one's method of decision-making and problem-solving, easy reading can be habit-forming.

That’s why even many people who have been to college limit themselves to this sort of read-as-you-run material. No wonder they find real books “boring.” The irony is, since real books also help us develop self-awareness, if they bothered to read real books they'd know exactly what and who is boring - and why.

II

So then, why learn to read differently by reading real books?

It’s a good question. After all, life is short and you only get one.

That being the case, our answer better be good. Especially for adults who are at an age when their point of view in general, and self-portrait in particular, is fairly fixed. Any changes they might make have to be made for very impressive reasons. So, again, why learn to read differently by reading real books? Well, as we said before, to live in a larger world. Larger than what?

Larger than the world that comes to us through the routine of our daily lives. Larger than the world that comes to us through news delivered by mindless mediocrities who beat us over the head with soulless propaganda masquerading as the ultimate truth that we have to believe in, or else. Even larger than the world that comes to us through the daily routine of family and friends with their plans, their hopes, their dreams, and their small talk. As much as we love them, we're bound over time to see the limits of our relationship with them and, of course, with ourselves.

Thanks to real books when we return to those relationships we're better able to view them out of a wider frame of reference, and better able to interpret the world, not just from our own perspective, but from that of others as well. That's why reading real books is not an escape from reality, but an escape into a deeper reality, away from that routine of daily living that can often distort our view of the world, ourselves, and those we love.

But, especially larger than one’s business or profession. Because nothing is more narrowing than the workplace, and it grows more and more narrow as one bends their efforts and energies to “succeed.” It’s enough to make one want to blow their brains out.

Why do that when you can read a real book? Anyway, you get the idea. The whole world today moves in a vast and ever expanding system of abstractions superimposed on reality. One big fat colossal make-believe, though the consequences are real enough in one’s personal life if they don’t follow the ever-shifting rules.

That would be hard enough even if the rules made sense, which, of course, they don’t. Because life today is one vast make-believe* anyone who wants contact with human life and all of its possibilities, anyone who wants contact with its most penetrating thoughts and deepest feelings, whether those thoughts and feelings come to us naturally or by reflection, must go somewhere else to find it. That somewhere else is found in real books, whether of literature or philosophy. It can also be found in the other arts, such as music, painting, architecture, or sculpture.

*Thanks to a hostile elite, their opportunistic proxies, and an ever credulous and obedient public determined to throw away their lives, and that of their children, by bonding with their abusers.

III

Remember, as I said in the last entry, these great works are not going to yield their cargo on demand. But if one reads them with concentration (for one reads works of art too) our efforts put us in possession of something nothing else can match, a self we can live with, because it’s ours and no one else's. A self that lays deep within and high above the roles we have to play in life is a self that takes us beyond role-playing and enhances the quality of life.

It’s exactly this self that we share with others. Sharing that self with others is an experience that is a good-in-itself, one that needs no justification, because it makes that life more worth living.

Developing a self enhances the quality of the roles we play in society, whatever that role might be. But, role-playing on its own violates the self. The only way to avoid this is through an ironic playing of roles. An awareness and development of the self shows us that, though roles are essential, they can be enhanced and even transcended. If not, role-playing violates the self. Readers who make reading central to their lives know this. The life of a reader is a life where thoughts and feelings are, as Dante put it, balanced equally by the light that moves the sun and other stars.

It brings us face to face with a deeper reality, a reality that is denied to those who confuse the role they’re playing with life itself. Through our experience as readers we escape the prison cell of society, its games and corresponding roles, long enough to climb to a place we never knew existed, but hoped we would find. And we do find it thanks, in part, to reading real books.

Closing Remarks

It’s true that we have to return to the world. And we do. But we come back transformed because we have transcended the limits of our culture and moved into a deeper reality and larger freedom.

We return from reading real books feeling enlightened, enlarged and illuminated, while even more grounded in reality than we were before. Who wouldn't want that? It’s true that, upon return, we too find ourselves, once again, back in the game. We hear the gates close behind us as we enter, but we know exactly where we are and in a way we never dreamed possible. With our self revitalized and our vision cleansed we can see the game for what it is. It is a murderous jungle. A place filled with savage beasts who will tear apart anyone who disagrees with them. A place filled with traps set for the weary traveler who longs for a better world, but must live in the one that’s there. And what’s there?

A swamp filled with decaying and rotten values that no one has gotten around to cleaning up and that the worst pretentiously dress up as something new. Our brave reader, our now no longer road weary traveler, knows that they will be the ones who will have to clean up the stables and set things right by making that place livable again. Not for everyone, but for anyone who knows that the only way to love oneself and others is to live free.

And that they are ready and able to do, exactly because they value a life of learning, and because they know that you can't learn unless you read real books. Because that's where the attributes of wisdom are. And life without wisdom is intolerable.

A fact easily confirmed. Just look around.

But they also know they’re not Hercules. Their task is never finished and never will be. A fact that doesn’t bother them perhaps as much as it should. And it doesn’t bother them because they know how to muster the courage to get the job done. And they know that because they have been inspired by great art.

And though our brave soul knows their work is never finished, or even adequately begun, it is no matter. After years of hard work and the presentation of the proper credentials, if only to themselves, they find their way back to the world. After a few startled moments our hero soons feels right at home and becomes a rending beast like all the rest, with one important exception.

Our hero fights the spirit that turns its back on reality while denying the value of others. Our hero fights insanity and evil.

That is the game as it is played inside the gates of the world we live in today. It truly is a murderous jungle. But sometimes it is as beautiful as paradise. Sometimes, it is as beautiful as we can make it. Sometimes the weather changes and the skies clear and one is in the Garden of the Lord, and the Lord walks beside.

But, is that enough?

For now, it'll have to be.

Until next time.