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The Weekly Wrap: May 11-17

Story Keeping

We have always loved storytellers, from the stories told in oral cultures, to writers who spin stories, to historians who research and tell the stories of our past. Less glamorous, but just as important, I would contend, are those who are story keepers. Without story keepers, our stories may die within a generation or less, whether from neglect or deliberate action.

Who are the story keepers? They are the publishers who keep important stories in print. They are the librarians who keep the stories on their shelves and connect readers and books. Booksellers, who take financial risks to make books available to readers are story keeping heroes.

I believe we are entering a season where story keeping is taking on greater importance. For example, books are being removed from libraries in service academies and schools. Others have pressed for the removals of books from public libraries. It may be subjects labeled “DEI,” which may include many works of Black, or other ethnic histories. Or it may include books portraying non-traditional gender identity or sexual orientation. If it has been politicized, it has probably been challenged or removed.

I don’t necessarily agree with all the stories or how they ought to be told. It is messy because of the rich mosaic of people who make up our society. Some just think it is simpler to erase the stories that differ from our favorite rendering of the story. But when we do this, we only hear the versions of a story from those who hold power. Then dissenting stories that give a fuller perspective are silenced. Simpler but smaller is what we get.

We are all important to the work of story keeping. We can support publishers, librarians, and booksellers. Whenever we buy and read and talk about books, we are story keepers. And when we read diverse books, we help keep alive the stories of those on the margins whose stories are under attack. We should aggressively resist any effort to ban or destroy books. I hope we don’t come to the day of Fahrenheit 451, where it becomes the task of those who want to save the stories to memorize them. Ultimately, they understood that this is what it meant to save civilization.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Summer is coming and the reading is easy. The Atlantic “The Summer Reading Guide” offers recommendations of great books for the beach or those hot summer afternoons where we dive into a book while sipping our sweet tea.

Were there books that made you challenge the conventions, that opened your mind to new ways of thinking about life, relationships, society? Timothy Aubry explores this topic in “Gateway Books.” What were your gateway books?

Then, perhaps you would study philosophy to explore the meaning of life. However, Pranay Sanklecha describes how this is not what he found in his philosophy studies in “Philosophy was once alive.”

What is “close reading”? In a review of On Close Reading by John Guillory, Dan Sinykin explores how one defines “close reading” and its place in literary studies. The article is “Pay Attention!” His own argument for close reading in the penultimate paragraph made reading this one worth it for me.

Finally, Mrs. Dalloway is one hundred years old! “A Hundred Years of Mrs. Dalloway” explores how Virginia Woolf’s novel was so revolutionary both in its day and in its long-term impact.

Quote of the Week

Feminist poet Adrienne Rich was born on May 16, 1929. She observed:

“Lying is done with words and also with silence.”

It seems to me that this is a corollary to Edmund Burke’s famous statement, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Ron Chernow’s Mark Twain arrived at my doorstep today. It is another massive biography, coming in at over a thousand pages of text. I’ll literally be reading that all summer. But if it is like his previous works, it should be a great ride.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. If anything, I have enjoyed The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry even more. And its main character is a somewhat cranky bookseller!

As an addendum to my thoughts on story keeping. I consider reviewing as a form of story keeping. I try to review a variety of diverse and important books and it is one of my ways to be a story keeper, making sure others know of these important stories.