There are so many things to read how do we know what is good or what is not worth the time? This is one question that rankled me in mid 90s when i had decided to spent more time on reading. It was the time when Internet hadn’t overwhelmed the scene so as to surf and get varied opinions, but whether Net or in person views of others can be biased, secondly you need to also be around some matured people with some good reading habits to give considered opinion, reading at home was confined at the most to Malayalam newspaper!. Ernakulam public library did have some decent collection but then the question remains what is a good book?
It was while travelling at some corner somewhere that i happen to come across this article written by Virginia Woolf: How should one read a Book. This excellent piece had a tremendous influence, I actually had forgotten about this rare article until the other day. I was at Shantiniketan (Bengal) loitering around the place and went to the same second hand book stall that i have visited every time i am here (some places really don’t change, but must add the quality of second hand books have deteriorated,
clearly an indication that the famous seat of learning-Shantiniketan- is going weak on intellectual inquiry, its getting quite mediocre around here), flipping through things i came across this article (need to add was quite ecstatic to get the book for 30R...and yes of all the essays of Woolf available in the Net you not will find this). Ms Woolf writes “In the first place, i want to emphasise the note of interrogation at the end of my title. Even if i could answer the question for myself, the answer would apply to me not to you. The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions”. So there Ms Woolf seem to have washed off her hand!!. Well not really this brilliant article does provide some insight, first being the above ‘follow your instinct’.
She writes “...few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it should be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. ...if you open your mind as widely as possible then signs and hints of almost imperceptible fineness, from the twist and turns of the first sentences, will bring you into presence of a human being unlike other. Steep yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this, and soon you will find that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you far more concrete.
These few lines have had a seminal influence on me, one significant factor that influenced me to dabble in writing “words are impalpable than bricks; reading is a longer and more complicated process than seeing. Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read, but to write; to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficulties of words ....but when you attempt to reconstruct it in words, you will find that it breaks into thousands of conflicting impressions. Some must be subdued; others emphasised; in the process you will lose, probably all grasp upon the emotion itself. Then turn from your blurred and littered pages to the opening pages of some great novelist. Now you will be able to appreciate their mastery”. How brilliant and how very true.
Having created a parameter Virginia Woolf does provide an insight on ‘judging’ a book “We have only to compare- with these words the cat is out of the bag, and the true complexity of reading is admitted. The first process, to receive impression with utmost understanding, is only half the process of reading; it must be completed, if we are to get the whole pleasure from a book, by another. We must pass judgement upon these multitudinous impressions; we must make of these fleeting shapes one that is hard and lasting. But not directly. Wait for the dust of reading to settle; for the conflict and questioning to die down; walk, talk, pull the dead petals from the rose, or fall asleep. Then suddenly without our willing it, for it is thus that Nature undertakes these transitions, the book will return but differently. It will float to the top of the mind as a whole. And the book as a whole is different from the book received currently in separate phrases. Details now fit themselves into their places. We see the shape from start to finish...now then we can compare book with book as we compare building with building. But this act of comparison means that our attitude has changed; we are no longer the friends of the writer, but his judges; and just as we cannot be too sympathetic as friends, so as judges we cannot be too severe”.It would be foolish, then, to pretend that the second part of reading, to judge, to compare, is as simple as the first-to open the mind wide to the fast flocking of innumerable impressions. To continue reading without the book before you, to hold one shadow-shape against another, to have read widely enough and with enough understanding to make such comparisons alive and illuminating- that is difficult”
“If this is so, if to read a book as it should be read calls for the rarest qualities of imagination, insight, and judgement, you may perhaps conclude that literature is very complex art and that it is unlikely that we shall be able, even after a lifetime of reading, to make any valuable to criticism”.
What a lovely paragraph this one, the best you can come across “Yet who reads to bring about an end, however desirable? Are there not some pursuits that we practice because they are good in themselves, and some pleasure that are final? And is not this among them? I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgement dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards-their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble-the almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, “look, these need no rewards. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading"
Post Script: In an essay titled A Poet’s School Tagore gives indication on what lead to starting the school at Shantiniketan (Sriniketan to be precise). There are many brilliant ideas on matter of education, this blogger find Osho, Jiddu Krishnamurthy, Aurobindo among others to be exceptional, this one by Tagore is quite brilliant...i have taken the liberty to delete many paragraphs as also to emphasis what i thought was significant in matters of Education (...you can read the whole essay on the Net. Plz also visit www.iseeebirds.blogspot.com for more on Tagore’s view on education..I am quoting few interesting paragraphs from the essay A Poet's School)
"From question’s that have been put to me, I have come to feel that the public claims an apology from the poet for having founded a school, as I in my rashness have done. One must admit that the silkworm which spins and the butterfly that floats on the air represent two different stages of existence, contrary to each other. The silkworm seems to have a cash value credited in its favor somewhere in Nature's accounting department, according to the amount of work it performs. But the butterfly is
irresponsible. The significance, which it may possess, has neither weight nor use and is lightly carried on in pair of dancing wings. Perhaps it pleases someone in the heart of the sunlight, the Lord Treasurer of colors, who has nothing to do with the account book and has a perfect mastery in the great art of wastefulness. The poet may he compared to that foolish butterfly. He also tries to translate all the festive colors of creation in the vibration of his verses. Then why should he imprison himself in an interminable coil of duty, bringing out some good tough and fairly respectable result? Why should he make himself accountable to those sane people who would judge the merit of his produce by the amount of profit it will bring? I suppose this individual poet's answer would be, that when he brought together a few boys, one sunny day in winter, among the warm shadows of the sal (shorea robusta) trees, strong, straight and tall, with branches of a dignified moderation, he started to write a poem in a medium not of words.
This brings to my mind the name of another poet of ancient India, Kalidasa....The poet in the royal court lived in banishment--banishment from the immediate presence of the eternal. He knew it was not merely his own banishment, but that of the whole age to which he was born, the age that had gathered in wealth and missed its well being, built its storehouse of things and lost its background of the great universe. What was the form in which his desire for perfection persistently appeared in his drama and poems? It was in that of the tapovana, the forest dwelling of the patriarchal community of ancient India. Those who are familiar with Sanskrit literature will know that this was not a colony of people with a primitive culture and mind. They were seekers of truth, for the sake of which they lived in an atmosphere of purity, but not of Puritanism; of the simple life, but not the life of selfmortification. They did not advocate celibacy and they had constant intercommunication with the other people who had to live the life of worldly interest. Their aim and endeavor have briefly been suggested in the Upanishad in these lines:
It was while travelling at some corner somewhere that i happen to come across this article written by Virginia Woolf: How should one read a Book. This excellent piece had a tremendous influence, I actually had forgotten about this rare article until the other day. I was at Shantiniketan (Bengal) loitering around the place and went to the same second hand book stall that i have visited every time i am here (some places really don’t change, but must add the quality of second hand books have deteriorated,
clearly an indication that the famous seat of learning-Shantiniketan- is going weak on intellectual inquiry, its getting quite mediocre around here), flipping through things i came across this article (need to add was quite ecstatic to get the book for 30R...and yes of all the essays of Woolf available in the Net you not will find this). Ms Woolf writes “In the first place, i want to emphasise the note of interrogation at the end of my title. Even if i could answer the question for myself, the answer would apply to me not to you. The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions”. So there Ms Woolf seem to have washed off her hand!!. Well not really this brilliant article does provide some insight, first being the above ‘follow your instinct’.She writes “...few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it should be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. ...if you open your mind as widely as possible then signs and hints of almost imperceptible fineness, from the twist and turns of the first sentences, will bring you into presence of a human being unlike other. Steep yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this, and soon you will find that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you far more concrete.
These few lines have had a seminal influence on me, one significant factor that influenced me to dabble in writing “words are impalpable than bricks; reading is a longer and more complicated process than seeing. Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read, but to write; to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficulties of words ....but when you attempt to reconstruct it in words, you will find that it breaks into thousands of conflicting impressions. Some must be subdued; others emphasised; in the process you will lose, probably all grasp upon the emotion itself. Then turn from your blurred and littered pages to the opening pages of some great novelist. Now you will be able to appreciate their mastery”. How brilliant and how very true.
Having created a parameter Virginia Woolf does provide an insight on ‘judging’ a book “We have only to compare- with these words the cat is out of the bag, and the true complexity of reading is admitted. The first process, to receive impression with utmost understanding, is only half the process of reading; it must be completed, if we are to get the whole pleasure from a book, by another. We must pass judgement upon these multitudinous impressions; we must make of these fleeting shapes one that is hard and lasting. But not directly. Wait for the dust of reading to settle; for the conflict and questioning to die down; walk, talk, pull the dead petals from the rose, or fall asleep. Then suddenly without our willing it, for it is thus that Nature undertakes these transitions, the book will return but differently. It will float to the top of the mind as a whole. And the book as a whole is different from the book received currently in separate phrases. Details now fit themselves into their places. We see the shape from start to finish...now then we can compare book with book as we compare building with building. But this act of comparison means that our attitude has changed; we are no longer the friends of the writer, but his judges; and just as we cannot be too sympathetic as friends, so as judges we cannot be too severe”.It would be foolish, then, to pretend that the second part of reading, to judge, to compare, is as simple as the first-to open the mind wide to the fast flocking of innumerable impressions. To continue reading without the book before you, to hold one shadow-shape against another, to have read widely enough and with enough understanding to make such comparisons alive and illuminating- that is difficult”
“If this is so, if to read a book as it should be read calls for the rarest qualities of imagination, insight, and judgement, you may perhaps conclude that literature is very complex art and that it is unlikely that we shall be able, even after a lifetime of reading, to make any valuable to criticism”.
What a lovely paragraph this one, the best you can come across “Yet who reads to bring about an end, however desirable? Are there not some pursuits that we practice because they are good in themselves, and some pleasure that are final? And is not this among them? I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgement dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards-their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble-the almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, “look, these need no rewards. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading"
Post Script: In an essay titled A Poet’s School Tagore gives indication on what lead to starting the school at Shantiniketan (Sriniketan to be precise). There are many brilliant ideas on matter of education, this blogger find Osho, Jiddu Krishnamurthy, Aurobindo among others to be exceptional, this one by Tagore is quite brilliant...i have taken the liberty to delete many paragraphs as also to emphasis what i thought was significant in matters of Education (...you can read the whole essay on the Net. Plz also visit www.iseeebirds.blogspot.com for more on Tagore’s view on education..I am quoting few interesting paragraphs from the essay A Poet's School)
"From question’s that have been put to me, I have come to feel that the public claims an apology from the poet for having founded a school, as I in my rashness have done. One must admit that the silkworm which spins and the butterfly that floats on the air represent two different stages of existence, contrary to each other. The silkworm seems to have a cash value credited in its favor somewhere in Nature's accounting department, according to the amount of work it performs. But the butterfly is
irresponsible. The significance, which it may possess, has neither weight nor use and is lightly carried on in pair of dancing wings. Perhaps it pleases someone in the heart of the sunlight, the Lord Treasurer of colors, who has nothing to do with the account book and has a perfect mastery in the great art of wastefulness. The poet may he compared to that foolish butterfly. He also tries to translate all the festive colors of creation in the vibration of his verses. Then why should he imprison himself in an interminable coil of duty, bringing out some good tough and fairly respectable result? Why should he make himself accountable to those sane people who would judge the merit of his produce by the amount of profit it will bring? I suppose this individual poet's answer would be, that when he brought together a few boys, one sunny day in winter, among the warm shadows of the sal (shorea robusta) trees, strong, straight and tall, with branches of a dignified moderation, he started to write a poem in a medium not of words.This brings to my mind the name of another poet of ancient India, Kalidasa....The poet in the royal court lived in banishment--banishment from the immediate presence of the eternal. He knew it was not merely his own banishment, but that of the whole age to which he was born, the age that had gathered in wealth and missed its well being, built its storehouse of things and lost its background of the great universe. What was the form in which his desire for perfection persistently appeared in his drama and poems? It was in that of the tapovana, the forest dwelling of the patriarchal community of ancient India. Those who are familiar with Sanskrit literature will know that this was not a colony of people with a primitive culture and mind. They were seekers of truth, for the sake of which they lived in an atmosphere of purity, but not of Puritanism; of the simple life, but not the life of selfmortification. They did not advocate celibacy and they had constant intercommunication with the other people who had to live the life of worldly interest. Their aim and endeavor have briefly been suggested in the Upanishad in these lines:
Te sarvgam sarvatah prapya dhira
Yuuktatmanah sarvamevavsanti
(Those men of serene mind enter into the All, having realized and bring
everywhere in union with the omnipresent Spirit).
It was never a philosophy of renunciation of a negative character, but of a realization completely comprehensive. It was not a deliberate copy, but a natural coincidence, that a poet of modern India also had a similar vision when he felt within him the misery of a spiritual banishment....Therefore, in order to be real it must find its reincarnation under modern conditions of life, and be the same in truth, not merely identical in fact. It was this, which made the modern poet's heart crave to compose his poem in a tangible language”
