Across the Page | The world is made up of stories, not atoms.

Son

By Janet 9 May, 2013 Novels

Having read all four books now in Lois Lowry’s Giver quartet, I find myself looking back and thinking about the big picture. For the most part, though I enjoyed the reading experience of the concluding book Son, I feel like Lowry would have done just as well to stop after The Giver.

Son returns to the scene of The Giver from a different perspective, that of Claire, mother to the baby with whom Jonas escapes from his restrictive futuristic community. We learn Claire’s story, which makes for interesting enough reading, and the book appears to be an attempt to tie up some of the loose ends still left after all three previous books.

But it leaves me scratching my head. Many of the twists and turns of Claire’s story seem like dead ends; the book is divided into three sections that simply read like three separate stories. Characters are introduced in ways that suggest they will be significant (Tall Andras, for instance, or the young man on the ship), then abandoned without amounting to anything related to the central plot. The ending is altogether too abrupt — as though Lowry had lost interest in her own story and simply wanted to quit writing. And finally, though the sinister Trademaster returns in this story, it’s hard to understand what’s so important about him, or what his fate in this story really accomplishes — other than to restore beauty to one character.

(That paragraph is probably totally unsatisfactory to anyone who hasn’t read the book, but I don’t want to dish up too many spoilers, so I’m going to let it stand…)

So why did I say it was enjoyable to read? There was more description of setting, and a larger cast of characters, and at times Lowry’s writing verged on the poetic. I didn’t find this to be the case in the other stories, which were more minimal and more about the plot than the full development of character or setting. I suppose this is why Son is a notably longer book than the others. But though there were aspects I enjoyed, it doesn’t leave me with much to chew on and certainly doesn’t beckon me to reread it sometime. My overall impression is that this is a series with a dynamite opening book and three anticlimactic successors. They all give us things to think about, but none of them rise to the level of the first book.

The Giver is the book that stays in mind, and the strength of Son is in its return to that setting: a world in which people have willingly sacrificed freedom and feeling; where love is considered a dangerous risk; where familial attachment — any human attachment — is subversive; where an autocratic central authority totally controls people’s fate; and where language is completely gutted and detached from its power; this is a world that invokes some meaty questions about society, government, relationships, and what really matters.

It’s interesting to me that all four books involve a search for parental connection. I’ve heard it said that if you want to write a book for young people, the first thing you have to do is kill off the parents in the story, so that the protagonist is acting alone. But these stories depict protagonists searching a drab world for a restored parent-child relationship. In the world of The Giver, this connection has been intentionally destroyed. It’s worth considering in what way this pervasive sense of disconnection and longing reflects something real and deep for today’s young readers.

Here are links to my reviews of the other three books: The Giver, Gathering Blue, and Messenger.

Messenger

By Janet 3 May, 2013 Novels

After reading Gathering Blue, I decided to continue on to the third book in Lois Lowry’s 4-book series. There’s one more left after Messenger, which picks up the narrative from within the perspective of Matty.

Matty is a ragged but winning boy who helps Kira in several important ways in Gathering Blue. He runs away from the society depicted in that book, and in this book we find him older, cleaned up, speaking grammatically, and living in the more caring and idealized world of the healers.

But something is wrong. I’m just going to offer the plot summary over at Amazon, and then talk about a couple of things that struck me as I read the novel:

For the past six years, Matty has lived in Village and flourished under the guidance of Seer, a blind man, known for his special sight. Village was a place that welcomed newcomers, but something sinister has seeped into Village and the people have voted to close it to outsiders. Matty has been invaluable as a messenger. Now he must make one last journey through the treacherous forest with his only weapon, a power he unexpectedly discovers within himself.

Gradually as these stories unfold, it becomes apparent that there are lots of different human societies, and all of them seem to spotlight some aspect of human weakness or fallenness. The one in The Giver raised the question of which is better: safety with extreme control, or risk and freedom. Gathering Blue played with the ideas of control and manipulation again, but in a more primitive context where humans are stripped down to their most basic drives. Messenger examines what happens when trade enters into a fairly isolated community. It becomes possible for people to get what they want by trading things they have — even non-material things like inner qualities. Selfishness begins to contaminate the Village, and people lose contentment as they try to satisfy their desires for entertainment or acquisitiveness. It’s an interesting way to stimulate reflection on the free market or “the global economy,” isn’t it?

I found fascinating the way Lowry turns the forest into a malevolent character. Plants reach out to stab or coil around Matty and Kira as they make their way back to the Village. The stench of rotting vegetation chokes them, and sizzling sap drips from cut vines. It’s a picture of nature turning against people, growing sicker and more fallen as its human inhabitants become so. As a Christian it was impossible for me not to see in this an imaginative rendering of the creation depicted in Romans. In fact, the story could be read as an allegory of Christ’s saving work in the world. Without wanting to give away the (sad) ending, I couldn’t help but recognize that the solution in the story, and the thing that enabled Matty to deliver Kira safely to her waiting father in Village, was nothing short of a redemption of the whole fictional Creation.

Another element easy to relate to Christian theology is the idea of calling. Everyone in Village is given a “true name” as part of their coming of age, and this name reflects their unique gift to the community. Matty hopes to receive “Messenger” as his true name, but he ends up getting a different one. Those who are most mature in their giftings receive their inspiration mystically, and the things they create or discover are invariably true visions in ways that aren’t bound by time and space. Some outward force offers prophetic revelation through human vessels.

I’m pretty sure that Lowry did not purposefully write a “Christian allegory.” A quick internet search turns up this interview, in which Lowry (speaking about The Giver) explains,

I wasn’t conscious of adding any theological symbolism. If I had begun to think in literally Christian terms, I would have backed off of the project because I have no interest in writing “religious” books. Still, clearly, the theology is there, inherent in the story. Many Christian churches have taken The Giver up as part of their religion curriculum, and many Jewish people give it as a bar mitzvah gift.

At the same time, some fundamentalist leaders want it removed from everyone’s hands. I am still, I must be honest, mystified by the challenges from the very conservative churches. I think, on one level, the book can be read supporting conservative ideals—it challenges the tendencies in any society to allow an invasive government to legislate lives.

It makes me curious (for the umpteenth time) about the power of stories. Reading involves such a complex relationship between writer, book, and reader, involving so many layers of meaning and experience. I can only wonder in what terms I would understand The Messenger if I came to it with a different set of beliefs and values. No wonder these books are so popular. They are classified as Young Adult books, and they move quickly (I’ve liked that for the most part, as I was in a reading slump — though I am getting weary of the lack of description that probably makes such a pace possible!). But they raise lots of deep questions for both mind and heart.

Gathering Blue

By Janet 1 May, 2013 Novels

A few years ago I read Lois Lowry’s The Giver, a thought-provoking book that offers a sobering vision of the future. Pain and conflict are ended; the society depicted in the book is technologically advanced and socially engineered; freedom is obsolete and, for the most part, not missed.

It’s the kind of book that leaves you with a lot to think about, and I didn’t feel like pressing on into the next book in the series. But lately it’s been on my mind, so I read the second book this week. Gathering Blue takes up the subject of the future again, but this time instead of an “advanced” society, Lowry creates a more primitive one — with at least the suggestion that it’s the remains of the world of the first book after some catastrophic ruin. The people live in huts and scrabble for food, striking their children and clawing for survival. Only one modern structure remains, inhabited by the Council of Guardians responsible for running the society.

There are lots of points of comparison between the two books, and lots of disturbing similarities to our extra-book world. I found it interesting that while in The Giver the past was remembered by only one designated “Receiver of Memory” because it was considered too disturbing, the past — or rather, a highly controlled version of the past — is paraded every year before the people in Gathering Blue in a ceremony heavy with ritual. Yet the basic purpose for this is the same in both books: subjugation. History is appropriated and reinterpreted by a political entity to maintain a state of equilibrium beneficial to the continuance of the status quo.

Child artists are targets in this book, not for destruction, but for enslavement to a government. One carves; another sings; the heroine, Kira, creates elaborate “threadings.” I liked the way Lowry managed to create a sense of unease for the reader long before the full truth was laid bare. I found it refreshing in this era of STEM giddiness to read a book underscoring the humanizing, liberating power of the arts and imaginative pursuits. (I realize I probably sound curmudgeonly, but as Sven Birkerts has said, “Being a curmudgeon is a tough job, but someone has to do it.”) As in The Giver, we find in these pages someone with courage to risk and imagine, so even though the future depicted here is a dystopia I came away feeling encouraged.

One thing I wondered about was the statement the book seemed to be making about religion in this vision of the future. It seems to be very much intertwined with the state, as the only notable religious observance is depicted at the community’s yearly Gathering at which they review their history. Everyone acknowledges with a nod, or perhaps a slight bow, a cross-like structure referred to as the “Worship object.” I wasn’t sure whether to read this as a comment on Christianity evolving into an empty show and part of the government’s general oppression of people, or a statement about the future of spirituality altogether. It’s not hard to imagine a religion being corrupted by state interference; that’s happened many times over. As G.K. Chesterton says, Christianity has died a natural death many times and experienced a fresh resurrection. But given the age-old, naturally religious nature of human beings, I’m skeptical about the implication that the spiritual could ever become completely irrelevant. If you’ve read it, I’m curious to know how you read this aspect of the story.

An interview with Lois Lowry is included at the back of this book. She explains,

Gathering Blue postulates a world of the future, as The Giver does. I simply created a different kind of world, one that had regressed instead of leaping forward technologically. It was fascinating to explore the savagery of such a world. I began to feel that maybe it coexisted with Jonas’ world…

The result is a book that raises many questions. What defines an advanced society? What defines a primitive one? How does history, and the knowledge of the past, help to shape the future? What is the relationship between a culture’s level of civilization and the way it treats its most vulnerable members? This series invites us to think about these questions, and to consider the important underlying one: What kind of society do we want, and how can we help to bring it about?

The High King

By Janet 28 April, 2013 Chapter Books

It’s happened: we’ve finished them. All five Prydain chronicles. I could cry.

Oh, wait — I did. Several times. And it’s not just because my daughters and I reached the end of this superb shared reading experience. It’s because The High King is an unbelievably high-stakes, moving ending to the story of Taran and “the companions.”

Tolkien calls his band of questing characters a fellowship. But Lloyd Alexander chooses this less biblical, more vulnerable human term “companions” to describe the now familiar group surrounding Taran: Eilonwy, Gurgi, Flweddur Fflam, and good old Doli the dwarf. I began noticing it here in the last book most of all. Gwydion, Coll, Hen Wen the oracular pig, Dallben the enchanter, Prince (now King) Rhun, and numerous acquaintances Taran made in Taran Wanderer also make appearances in these pages as events gather momentum toward a defining crisis for Prydain. Their mission seems truly impossible: to recover the sword Dyrnwyn, stolen by Arawn the Death Lord, and thereby save Prydain from thralldom or destruction.

Rereading these books as an adult, I’ve been struck from the start by the depth of character Alexander gives Taran and his friends. The result is a sense of deep attachment to them, and we felt anxious and at times heartbroken as we worked our way through these pages. There is wisdom here, and courage, and the conflict between good and evil is laid bare. It’s a serious book but an immensely satisfying one.

I don’t want to include any spoilers, but I did find myself wanting to learn more about Lloyd Alexander after rereading these books. What did he have to say about his stories? Among other things, in this interview he says,

The High King was the final logical development of the first four books in the Prydain Chronicles. It was not an easy book to write, but at least I was building on a foundation that I had already made. I never considered a different ending, but I know that some readers think it should have ended differently. I cried for three days afterwards… I had been writing the Prydain Chronicles for about seven years, and the characters were as close to me as my own family. Indeed, they felt like my family. I admit that I wept at the end – to see Taran confronted with such a brutally difficult decision. And yet, I was convinced that he did the right thing. But to me, I felt the same loss that he did…

Maybe that will whet your appetite if you haven’t read these books! And if you have, and you want to see Lloyd Alexander talking about them, here is the first of a three-segment interview with Lloyd Alexander on YouTube. (He shows us Fflewddur’s harp!) Here’s the second part. (He talks about becoming a writer, and transitioning into writing “children’s books.”) And here’s the third. (He shows us his work room and talks about writing.)

*Much though I love the Narnia stories, and much though I believe them to contain a deeply meaningful level of spiritual realism, the Prydain chronicles have a different kind of realism — as well as what I can only describe as more heart. There is a spiritual depth to these tales; they are similar in many ways to Tolkien’s tales of Middle Earth. But they are somehow less cerebral and more psychological in their imaginative vision. I recommend them all highly and feel sure I’ll be revisiting them again.

*Edited to add: I find myself wanting to stand the Narnia and Prydain stories next to one another and compare them, but I’m not satisfied with my attempt here. It will be something to muse on in coming days…

Taran Wanderer

By Janet 24 April, 2013 Chapter Books

With Llonio, each day he visited the nets, the baskets, and the weir, sometimes returning empty-handed and sometimes laden with whatever strange assortment the wind or current brought. In the beginning he had seen no value in these odds and ends, but Llonio found a use for nearly all. A cartwheel was turned into a spinning wheel, parts of a horse bridle made belts for the children, a saddlebag became a pair of boots; and Taran realized there was little the family needed that did not, late or soon, appear from nowhere; and there was nothing — an egg, a mushroom, a handful of feathers delicate as ferns — that was not held to be a treasure. (Taran Wanderer, by Lloyd Alexander)

Llonio is the most intriguing character of all to me in this fourth book of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles. I’ve been enjoying revisiting them as read-alouds with my children in recent weeks, and it’s with some trepidation that we turn now to the fifth and last book, The High King. I don’t want them to end!

In this novel Taran sets out in search of his personal history. He travels with some, but not all, of his familiar companions, and he meets some formidable enemies along the way. Among these the wizard Morda is the worst, and Taran’s encounter with him represents both a stunning victory and the narrowest of escapes. The outlaw Dorath, too, threatens Taran more than once, and at the end of the book he is still at large. (I suspect we’ll meet him again in the last book — though it’s been so long I can’t remember! I was in 7th grade or so when I read these the first time.)

But there are a number of marvelous characters as well: a smith, a weaver, a potter, a herdsman, a farmer. We get a glimpse of King Smoit, familiar from The Black Cauldron, in his own territory. Part of what makes this such an appealing story is that although Taran sees himself as a nameless wanderer in search of identity, and though he seeks and does not (to his satisfaction) find his calling in several trades that he tries out, we see that he is tremendously talented and capable in just about everything he tries. He is forever seeing himself as inadequate, and this is part of what makes him so likable. In this story he is more aware of his own feelings, particularly related to the Princess Eilonwy. Of course, we’ve known he was in love with her, but at last it’s evident that he knows it too (despite the fact that she does not make a single appearance in this book).

But this episode in which Taran stays a few days with Llonio and his family has intrigued me and been on my mind. Llonio and his family provide for their needs via whatever small gifts come their way. They’re a picture of contentment, partly because they gratefully and enthusiastically receive whatever comes, and partly because they have the skills and imagination to make the most of it. It’s been wonderful to think about in relation not just to faith, but to education, too. I’ve really loved reading this.

On Freedom of Thought

By Janet 19 April, 2013 Miscellany

Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliche about teaching you to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. (David Foster Wallace, qtd. in Alan Jacobs’ The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction)

…all consists in one hearty renunciation of everything which we are sensible does not lead to God. (Brother Lawrence, 17th century monk, The Practice of the Presence of God)

I’ve had these two quotations in my mind this week. Both relate to the aim of education, to the question of how to deal with the hovering threat of “chronic partial attention syndrome” in our distracted age, and to spiritual wholeness. Food for thought.

Tolkien’s World

By Janet 17 April, 2013 Novels, On Reading

My daughters are becoming pretty knowledgeable Middle Earth historians. Last night at supper they were discussing why Elrond’s brother Elros may have chosen to become human rather than an an elf. Then there followed a comparison of Sauron with Satan. And so on.

They get all of this from the appendixes at the back of the Lord of the Rings. I’ve always stopped at the end of the story and been ready to move on, but they like the annals of the kings, the dwarf family trees, and the other elaborations and side stories.

I guess this is good. The scope and development of Tolkien’s imaginative universe is amazing — really a lot like the imaginative universe a child invents when armed with nothing but a few plastic figurines and the great outdoors. My daughters have found themselves in this situation often growing up, and I’ve always enjoyed listening to them. So much of their play involves inventing a story, populating a universe, constructing a history. Their talk is always punctuated with story conventions: “he said,” “she said,” patches of narrative that not only express what a given toy may be saying, but that tell what they are doing and thinking. So maybe this is part of the appeal of Tolkien trivia.

It all makes me wonder about the value and function of such imaginative worlds. Much has been written about them — authors frequently cite their favorite books as children, and particular imaginative realms are usually a key part of the appeal. I believe that somehow, places — real places, and also literary and imaginative places — are significant in some ground-level way in our thinking and in our identity. It’s not mere escape, although that is a part of the reading experience. These worlds become, somehow, part of our minds’ structure.

All that I remain conflicted about is the fact that my daughters are experiencing it all via audiobook. Younger Daughter follows along in the printed tome on occasion, but for the most part they have simply listened and re-listened to the unabridged audiobook we got from the library. The book is written at a fairly lofty level and though they would understand it I doubt that they would have had the patience to plow all the way through it at this stage (though it’s conceivable to me that children their age could). If I were reading it aloud it would take a long time and wouldn’t carry this quality of immersion experience. Listening to the audiobook is a whole different experience.

But on the downside, it permits multi-tasking. It represents a short-cut to the immersion experience. It’s less work, taking less concentration and patience than working with the physical book. I’ve been on the fence about audiobooks for quite some time and I guess I remain there.

I’ve pondered this before. From the archives, here is a sampling of past posts on this subject:

Encyclopedia of Outdated Information

By Janet 17 April, 2013 Miscellany

…up until the last generation it was possible to be born, grow up, and spend a life in the United States without moving more than 50 miles from home, without ever confronting serious questions about one’s basic beliefs, and patterns of behavior. Indeed, without ever confronting serious challenges to anything one knew. Stability and consequent predictability — within “natural cycles” — was the characteristic mode. But now, in just the last minute, we’ve reached the stage where change occurs so rapidly that each of us in the course of our lives has continuously to work out a set of values, beliefs, and patterns of behavior that are viable, or seem viable, to each of us personally. And just when we have identified a workable system, it turns out to be irrelevant because so much has changed while we were doing it.

Of course, this frustrating state of affairs applies to our education as well. If you are over 25 years of age, the mathematics you were taught in school is “old”; the grammar you were taught is obsolete and in disrepute; the biology, completely out of date, and the history, open to serious question. The best that can be said of you, assuming that you remember most of what you were told and read, is that you are a walking encyclopedia of outdated information.

(Teaching as a Subversive Activity by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner, 1971)

Postman and Weingartner go on to offer (among other things) a metaphor: our language is a map intended to describe the world outside our skins. When the map corresponds to what’s actually there, a person has a high degree of success in functioning. When it doesn’t, chaos sets in. Education, they suggest, should help students develop an effective language — one that includes an ability to describe the state of continual change we live in.

Before reading any farther, I want to jot down some thoughts about how to do this, because it’s something often on my mind. Mostly it’s something I wonder about: am I a real dinosaur, creating dinosaurs with my educational approach? But I think there are some ways an effective “map” is formed naturally with our educational efforts.

Students need information, and not all facts are in a state of flux. I’m not quite as committed to pouring facts into kids in the early stages as some of the more hard-core proponents of the trivium, but certain facts are essential building blocks and should be taught without apology.
We need to remember our own orientation — in terms of both worldview and history — at all times when so much around us seems to be in flux. It can be articulated often in lots of areas — study of history or science or literature. The first thing you look for on a map is where you are. Each attempt to clarify where we stand in relation to what we’re studying reinforces identity, and strengthens one’s internal “language.”
Cultivate imagination, reading with appreciation, art, creative problem solving, and all creative pursuits. Consider the ethical and spiritual dimensions of current events. Life is about so much more than transient human activity.
Nature study. It’s only human innovation and knowledge that change rapidly. Get outside and find some loved places and you discover that nature is more stable. It’s also the larger context in which all human culture exists, and in significant ways it sets the terms whether we acknowledge it or not. The natural world provides one of the most vital external reference points there is.

The Pleasures of Reading

By Janet 14 April, 2013 Literary Study

Plan once appealed to me, but I have grown to be a natural worshiper of Serendipity and Whim; I can try to serve other gods, but my heart is never in it. I truly think I would rather read an indifferent book on a lark than a fine one according to schedule and plan. And why not? After all, once upon a time we chose none of our reading: it all came to us unbidden, unanticipated, unknown, and from the hand of someone who loved us.

This passage is one of many in Alan Jacobs’ The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction that explores reading according to Whim. I found myself in agreement with him in his basic response to worries that “long-form” reading is becoming extinct in the digital age: read what you love, what you’re naturally attracted to, rather than adopting an approach to books as the mental equivalent of nutritional supplements or character improvement.

This is a short book, but one full of provocative and (as many others have noted) witty food for thought. It’s disarming in a way, acknowledging that we face some unique challenges to deep attention these days, but this has always been the case for readers. There has never been a time when reading has not been a challenge in a noisy world. (In fact, I think it was in Jacobs’ The Narnian that I came across some compelling discussion of C.S. Lewis’ ability to read with concentration amidst many distractions.) We are in no more danger now than we’ve ever been, really.

Moreover, Jacobs encourages us to think about what our ideals really are when it comes to reading. Though he is an English professor, he points out that deep, appreciative reading as an educational goal is relatively new, and in fact there isn’t really any way to teach it — nor do our educational structures encourage it. College is really about getting a basic orientation in various subjects and therefore is actually more conducive to shallower reading than the kind of “encapsulating aesthetic experience” (as we used to call it in my college literary criticism class) we tend to idealize when we talk about true readers. We may lament that our educational institutions aren’t inculcating enough love for books, but maybe the problem is that this is an unrealistic goal.

There are many interesting and entertaining scenic turns along the way in this book and I enjoyed it thoroughly. But mostly I felt reassured. I was challenged to look at my own reading habits, too. As a PhD in English, I’ve completed plenty of “should read” lists. The year I studied for qualifying exams stands out in my memory: I remember my one-room apartment, and where I sat as I plowed through anthology after anthology in 18th and 19th century British lit, as well as American lit. It’s a good memory, mostly; gradually my mind was illuminated by the connections and trends that I came to see for myself. I probably knew more then than I will ever know again.

But the years since my children were born and I took up my own reading agenda outside the walls of the academy have been wonderful in a different way as I’ve rediscovered whim. A spate of books on technology; another spate by Elizabeth Goudge, when I first discovered her; several on this or that theological issue; a chain of Lewis books. And so on. I’ve had the luxury of rereading books, and of reading books to my children. I’ve read more nonfiction than I ever read in school, finding to my surprise that I was hungry for it and liked it. I’ve been free to respond to the books according to no one’s rules or conventions but my own. I’m not sure which kind of reading has been more “educational” or formative intellectually, but I think I would have a very hard time going back now that I’ve established myself as a Whim reader. (Incidentally, being a Whim reader also means that there are times that I don’t really feel like reading anything, and don’t. That’s not the end of the world either.)

One other way I found this book delightful is in its acknowledgment that not everyone is a reader, and that’s okay. It’s not technology that has zapped these people; it’s always been this way, and it doesn’t mean we’re steadily devolving into illiteracy. It means people are different. Our struggles with various distractions are real, and we have to find ways to manage them (mainly by simply turning some of them off) if we value a life rich with books. But this isn’t really so difficult. Our first order of business, Jacobs reminds us, is choosing books that bring joy. The rest will follow.

Grinding Machine

By Janet 12 April, 2013 Nonfiction, On Reading

I’ve had some time to read today and find that I can’t really ingest any more of The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction without pausing to reflect. This excerpt in particular, quoted from Charles Darwin, captures my attention:

Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds… gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays… But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music…

My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organized or better constituted than mine, would not, I suppose, have thus suffered; and if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.

I can’t help but think of the common core initiative with its heavy bias toward nonfiction. What kind of people will such a view of “education” turn out? I find this passage sobering because it reminds me that our minds are formed by what they dwell upon. Nicholas Carr wrote of the plasticity of the brain, and this means that changes to the quality of our thought lives can be undone or refined. But Darwin here suggests what I suppose I already know: there can be a point of no return.

How much better and wiser it would be to offer our children the widest possible range of literature and art, as well as science and mathematics, so that they can have a greater choice in who they will become.

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