What are You Reading?
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The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton, an autobiography outlining how he went from an unsettled childhood in which he lost his mom at a young age, traveled with his dad who was a painter (fine arts), and was put in various boarding schools and left with various relatives. He had a somewhat debauched career as a student at Cambridge in England and later at Columbia U. in NYC. I'm not a Roman Catholic, though I grew up with many Catholic kids in the Chicago area, so have a fairly developed sense of Catholic culture, by immersion. I like any account that describes the evolution of development and thought leading to a calling in life, in Merton's case, as a Trappist monk. I kind of compare and contrast this with Oliver Sacks autobiography On The Move, another similar account, though Sacks was an extremely different person.
Last night I took possession of my old collection of books from my high school years, and into college. Weird feeling. Sort of a bizarre, scattershot portrait of my thoughts and interests at the time. Mostly histories and civics, and the requisite quota of "Western Canon" texts that everyone's 'supposed' to have read (whether I actually did or no), with a good bit of Tolkien thrown in. During my college years my reading changed--less Law and more Religion, fewer novels in favor of more poetry--and American Transcendentalism more than anything else.
So now I have a few hundred volumes out of my past, and it feels like I'm sharing my apartment with an older version of myself. Very strange. Sort of uncomfortable, actually--not only because I think now of how much money I wasted on them (why didn't I use the library more!?), but because I know I'll never read most of them ever again.
So now begins the painful and laborious process of deciding what to hang on to, and what to let go.
More cheerfully, I knew at once which book I'd reread next: Shelby Foote's Civil War narrative!
So now I have a few hundred volumes out of my past, and it feels like I'm sharing my apartment with an older version of myself. Very strange. Sort of uncomfortable, actually--not only because I think now of how much money I wasted on them (why didn't I use the library more!?), but because I know I'll never read most of them ever again.
So now begins the painful and laborious process of deciding what to hang on to, and what to let go.
More cheerfully, I knew at once which book I'd reread next: Shelby Foote's Civil War narrative!
"On Hunting" by Roger Scruton. A philosopher/writer delves into the thoughts and feelings he encounters as he takes up fox hunting. Basically a pleas for tolerance toward the sport that places love of animals above the pursuit of them. Another "I never looked at it that way" experience. Also, a different look at life for the deracinated urbanite (who would likely never read this book).
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