On the Moral Force of Books
Written by Story Pennock
Standing at my window, looking out at my garden, I see a magpie flutter down to the rocks where I left my pretty things out to admire. In one swoop, it takes my prized gold locket and flits away, leaving me no time to react. “Stealing is a sin,” I think, shutting my book and furrowedly surveying my jewelry box, grateful the window is closed so magpies can’t get in.
This is one of my most formative memories with books. I was about five and had just learned about the ten commandments in Sunday school, some of which I only fully digested after feeling the effects of “sins” while reading The Little Thief, a book about a magpie who went on a stealing spree of sorts. In that same way prose came into, and often paralleled, very formative moments in my life. At eleven, Jo’s diatribes against society in Little Women got me through some very awkward years in middle school; at fourteen the overspilling passion in Anna Karenina embellished and encouraged my falling in love for the first time (someone missed the point!!). At fifteen-almost-sixteen, Wuthering Heights and Blind Assassin helped ease me out of it. If I had more pavement between myself and sixteen-to-eighteen, I would share the literature that framed and altered my experiences. But, for now, my Goodreads will be an elusive tell-all.
La Pensée (The Thought) by Jean Despujols, French, 1929. Oil on canvas.
Though I understand I haven’t gone into riveting detail (this is my newspaper, not my diary), prose has often been a translucent barrier between myself and my experiences. Like a lovely piece of stained glass it has lit my emotional world with beaming reds and blues, patterning the vaulted walls of my mind. I can lift my eyes to the glass but the traced figures will save me from seeing the raw, ugly, and mundane other side Through prose, all parts of life become romantic.
For me, a good quote or poem has often been a romanticizing safety blanket. Cadence and phrases of authors from Pasternak to Gibbons have leaked into my inner and outer monologues, acting like slip and score on my thoughts and presentation to the world. Subsequently, successes and pitfalls of worldviews and morals in literature have in equal parts encouraged me into acting ridiculously and courageously. I am very much so party to ‘you are what you read’, but some, like Kothka Pollitt, disagree: “Read the conservative’s list and produce a nation of sexists and racists or a nation of philosopher-kings. Read the liberal’s list and produce a nation of spineless relativists, or a nation of open-minded world citizens. Read the radical's list, and produce a nation of ancestor worshippers, or a nation of stalwarts, proud-to-be-me, pluralists. (...) But is there any list of a few dozen books that can have such a magical effect for good or for ill? Of course not. Because, as the debaters know from their own experience as readers, books are not pills that produce health when ingested in measured doses. Books do not shape character in any simple way, if indeed they do so at all. Or the most literate would be the most virtuous instead of the ordinary run of humanity with larger vocabularies, (Pollitt 24).”
Though Pollitt is correct in that dogmatizing the education system is wrong and ineffective, she misplaces the blame on books being insufficient morality transmitters. Instead, they are just being used in the wrong way. In America, we live in a culture with extremely varying beliefs, which means that whatever ideology is impressed into students in school will have a limited effect. Indeed, we couldn’t even put forward a centrist ideology in schools as even our definition of centrism is inconsistent: I know self-proclaimed centrists that voted for Kamala and for Trump! This is symptomatic of another problem wherein we, under the guide of free speech, have become so over-tolerant of radical ideas on the far left and far right side of the political spectrum that our idea of centrism has expanded well into both the left and right. But that’s a discussion for another time.
When a school system prioritizes content that endorses any ideology in such a culture as ours, students might use it as a frame of reference when dryly analyzing literature - and surely some of the more weak minded will become radicalized - but they will not be collectively brought to a higher, moral enlightenment. Indeed, dogmatizing the education system, especially through books, is going to be one of the moments historians look back on in America’s history and sigh “what were they thinking?”. Americans should be looking for a solution to the infighting instead of perpetuating it through ideological wars in schools. And books are the solution, insofar as we should use them to cultivate a generation of readers that will then go off and find, and passionately care about, their own ideologies.
Similarly to political books, most children and teenagers in English classes will never be roped in by the intelligentsia’s favored books from the 20th century. Most students will not be willing to see through the dense, posh prose and overt philosophical implications because such musings are irrelevant to their own life. Instead, the books students should start with should be the ones that run parallel to the average student’s life: they should be about minor instances of love, loss, the pursuit of happiness, and the innate human desire for adventure. They should be democratic in verse, but beautiful. They should be a bit formulaic to guarantee capturing attention.
Now, all people are of course capable of understanding and even deeply loving the likes of Moby Dick or Middle March, but many lack confidence in their own ability to be inspired. And so, we should compile a booklist that is relatable, easily digestible, and instills virtues in the public. A list of slightly more contemporary, say, in the last century, authors with themes that are relevant to the cultural zeitgeist. If you have to break down a book for students to understand it, it is not the book that will incite their love for reading. Confidence nurtures inspiration and eventually, in higher levels of high school or college, students will be willing to march through a difficult text and be able to feel it as an emotion.
I would have been lost in much of my life without my books and it troubles me that many face equal, or worse, struggles without the same solace. They are unable to know their hopes and problems aren’t anomalous, but part of a larger human history that can, therefore, be overcome. People need to read books to help them understand, and shape, their view of the world and they won’t find that in the political underpinnings - at least not at first. They need words that will act like a pane of stained glass: reflective, much more beautiful than reality, and translucent rather than transparent.
Story Pennock is a college student and co-founder of the Rosebud News. As her name would suggest, she loves telling stories and giving her unsolicited opinion about literature, history, and current events. Her pastimes include going to museums, reading, researching historical fashion, playing guitar, listening to Brit-pop and maintaining her Duo Lingo Italian/Turkish/Portuguese streak (just dont ask her to say anything other than nouns).
Sources Used:
Katha Pollitt. Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism. New York, Vintage Books, 1995.