'A Precondition for Reading Good Books'

The late Simon Leys led me to this encouraging insight from Schopenhauer (Essays and Aphorisms, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, 1970):

“The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.”

No reader starts out knowing this. My own early reading was omnivorous and indiscriminate. I had no standards and followed a self-generated curriculum. My stomach was strong, and I could swallow almost anything, even science fiction. Fortunately, that changed. Unfortunately, so has the world.

In a few weeks, my youngest son returns to his boarding school in Ontario. He’s a tenth-grader and has tested into senior A.P. English. That sounded good until an email arrived on Sunday informing him that before school begin he has a book to read. Previously, that book was an obvious choice, King Lear. Senior year is a little late to encounter that play for first time, but I understand the drift of things. The Canadian brain trust, however, has other ideas. David must read American War (2017), dystopian crap by Omar El Akkad. A précis suggests the novel is a string of trendy clichés – drones, state secession, a ban on fossil fuels, assassination. Patronizing young people, spoon-feeding them fashionable ideas, is never a good idea. At David’s age – fifteen – I would already have outgrown such condescending pap.

“The art of our necessities is strange,

That can make vile things precious.”

[In contrast, my middle son, in his first year at the U.S. Naval Academy, faces an interesting reading list in English III: The Iliad, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Macbeth and The Tempest, among other titles.]