Skip to main content

On Favorite Books

People have been making a great deal of Republican VP nominee, Paul Ryan's favorite book choice, Atlas Shrugged. Which is understandable, given that it's a political book with such a wide influence that no one bothers to actually read it (myself included). A few moments ago, I read a brief article/post asserting that Ryan now claims his favorite author is Thomas Aquinas, as though trying to cover up the highly controversial Ayn Rand business.

I understand that a politician claiming a political book as a favorite is a certain statement about his own political persuasions. I get that. But I'd like to point out that if someone asked me who my favorite author was, I'd likely say "Dostoevsky," and I'd mean it. But if you asked me what book I have read more often than any other, it would probably be Cynthia Voigt's On Fortune's Wheel. Which, considering what that whole series has to say about magic, fantasy, and cultural narratives of belief, would be very deceptive as an indicator of my personal feelings about such things. Or if you asked which author's canon I was most familiar with, I suppose that would be C. S. Lewis. Who is lovely, but not quite the same as Dostoevsky. Or perhaps it would be Madeleine L'Engle. Both would say very flattering things about my discernment, I'm sure, but when you consider the wide array of readers who could make the same claim of authorial familiarity with these folks, it becomes harder and harder to see a real connection between the books I most love and the sort of person that I am.

This is very different than the influence of a mentor or a pastor or a teacher. Books are our teachers, certainly. But we have more agency with them than we do individuals. The same article mentioned above likened Ryan's Ayn Rand to another major political figure's erstwhile pastor. I like comparisons. I often find them to be helpful. But this one seems more than a little misguided.

That's all I have to say about the politics of things, though I'll continue to mull over my reading choices and what they have to say about me. Because I'm sure they say something, but I'm less sure that what they say is particularly relevant . . . or honest.

Comments

  1. Leslie07 September, 2012 23:07

    I just finished watching 2 episodes of Jeeves and Wooster, and then read this. Honestly, you and Jeeves would be fun to listen to in conversation. Anyway, you have me thinking (as always) about my favorite authors and books. Right now all that comes to mind is Frog and Toad. I'm sure there's depth in there somewhere...I bought Atlas Shrugged last summer, but may read Fountainhead first--it's shorter.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

window in the sub

Dear Nathaniel, I am microwaving pie that Mom bought up in Oak Glen this week on her way home from the orthodontist. As I put it in the microwave, I was full of sadness that I was not in Oak Glen with her. Why did I not go? I was working. I want to see the trees turn. I want to wander slowly through autumnal gift shops. Under the water, you cannot sense the approach of the seasons. Even here it is difficult because, after all, it's California. But I can still sense it. After three seasons in Illinois and one in Scotland, it must be with me for good. Or at least for a while. Because I am all abuzz with eagerness for fall and winter, for turkeys and dried leaves and Santa. I should start cooking again this fall. Fall foods are my favorite. Baked squash dripping with melted butter and brown sugar, pumpkin soup... this year, if I have enough money, I will put together a holiday dinner for my friends. And we will drink Scandinavian mulled wine, which is the most wonderful thing I have e...
13 comments
Read more

Again in Gilead

I just finished reading this for the second time last week, thanks to the forever book group of Grace. It was equally as lovely the second time around, and while reading it, I wrote down a dozen more quotes from the incomparable Ames, who is both too beautiful a man to be real and too beautiful a man not to be real. (I'm grateful and amazed to know a few like him.) "It has been my experience that guilt can burst through the smallest breach and cover the landscape, and abide in it in pools and danknesses, just as native as water." (p.82) I have found this to be remarkably true. I see it in myself, and in many others as well. "I believe there are visions that come to us only in memory, in retrospect." (p.91) This seems to be about the only way I experience visions, but because memory is a rickety thing, I tend not to trust them much. Which makes me a poor prophet. "I know, too, that my own experience of the church has been, in many senses, shelte...
Post a Comment
Read more

At the close of nine years

I'm moving to Texas in less than two months. I've lived in Long Beach now for nine years. Already I have stacks of books covering my dining room table that I'll be reading for my PhD program in the fall. I've quietly begun the tedious work of sorting and cleaning everything in my little apartment. I'm scheduling all of my last days with friends, moving through my calendar in reverse order from when I expect to slip into my car and drive away. This is the longest I've lived in one place, so I've never really experienced a leaving quite like this before. I remember the day I left Wheaton, closing the bedroom door on my best friend, walking down to Chaeli's car so she could drive me to the airport. (The greatest grace of Texas is that she will be there. Some friends we never lose completely.) I remember leaving California for Scotland—walking away from my mother in the Palm Springs airport. We leave people who have changed us, and we leave places that ha...
1 comment
Read more