The Coral Gables Times

How to Open a Book—and Why

BY HARRY GOLDEN Author of "Only in America," "For 2¢ Plain," "Enjoy, Enjoy." PHOTOGRAPH BY TOM E. WALTERS FROM PIX A great reader discusses bad reading habits and tells, with relish, what to do about them EDITORS' NOTE: We've got a surprise for Harry Golden. "Why don't Americans read?" he wants to know. Our answer is, "We do—in the suburbs." (In a recent survey, one third of the suburban families interviewed belonged to book clubs!) Here, for National Library Week, April 8-15, is a favorite author's tribute to books, and for us readers especially, it's good to hear him tell it. READING IS A JOY, but not an unalloyed joy. Books do not make life easier or more simple, but harder and more interesting. Reading is a partnership. Like any partnership, you get as much out of it as you put into it. Some partnerships are profitable, some just dead horses. Unlike most partnerships, however, reading is not the sort of joint venture which must show profits nor does it even have to chart its volume. One book a year is sufficient—provided it is the right book; and by the right book I mean a book the reader understands and assimilates. I would like to consider why we Americans do not wish to enter into the partnership. The truth of the matter is, we do not read books. Take the case of Boris Pasternak's "Dr. Zhivago," one of the most popular books of the last decade. In America it sold over half a million copies. Those sales were a foregone conclusion—and I mean no disrespect to either the publishers or to Boris Pasternak—because the book was a psychological break in the cold war, a novel which recreated the deterioration of moral life under the Soviet regime, and Khrushchev made a public-relations mistake in condemning it. But once bought, a good portion of those half-million American copies of "Dr. Zhivago" simply decorated coffee tables until they were consigned to the shelves. It is true we publish more books than ever before, but this is not an encouraging sign, considering the books. Half are "self-help" books dedicated to teaching people how to feed a husband, set a table, play bridge, or turn a neurosis into a profitable occupation, and another third are "nothing" books, memoirs of the personality or starlet who is "hot" at the moment. As Jimmy Durante would say, "These are the conditions that prevail," and I think it is worthwhile to understand them. There are several reasons why we do not read, and chief among them is the fact that we are poorly educated. For too long we have been trying to educate our children on the charity of underpaid teachers, and, as a consequence, our teachers are no better than they have to be. Teachers do not find time to deal with the world of literature, only with the required reading list on the absurd daily-lesson plan. Even our colleges rarely produce bilingual graduates the way every grammar school in Europe does. Another reason advanced for not reading is that we haven't time. Translated roughly, this probably means that science has overcome us with the affliction of gadgetry and the economy with the affliction of compulsive buying, both of which do consume time and conspire to keep the better part of ourselves from influencing the poorer part. Not having time is a meaningless excuse since it is obvious that we prefer idleness to improvement. NEITHER the English yeoman nor the Midwestern pioneer had much time or schooling. Both, however, could quote chapter and verse from the Bible. Once every Jewish peddler knew every gloss in the Mishnah. But few Jews and few Christians today know their Book. If the Old and the New Testament were not read during services in synagogue and church, most people would have no idea of prophecy or revelation. Which, of course, reveals the overpowering reason why we do not read: basically we are losing faith in the future and in ourselves. Please do not confuse my cynicism with my own love of books and, I might add, my understanding of the role books have played in the progress of our civilization and in our daily lives. Reading is the discipline which leads to self-thinking. What we absorb by reflection becomes part and parcel of our mental processes. Our history has shown that the bookish men have given us the best government, beginning with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who were two of the most widely read men in the English-speaking world of their day, or of any day for that matter. I was fortunate to have acquired the habit of reading when still a very little boy. And once you acquire this habit you begin to absorb words the way a sponge takes water, and the results are just as refreshing. To acquire some of the culture of our civilization we must read the Bible above any other book; and a few of Shakespeare's plays—"Hamlet," "The Merchant of Venice," "Macbeth," "A Midsummer Night's Dream"; "Don Quixote" by Cervantes; Plutarch's "Lives"; and Hugo's "Les Miserables." I agree that if you are a student you should have some knowledge of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Lecky's "History of European Morals," and Hume's "History of England," but do not let the snobs frighten you. Just dip into the footnotes of these books or, better still, get a copy of Henry Thomas Buckle's "History of Civilization in England," which I consider of particular value. Keep Emerson's "Miscellanies" at your side, and Carl Sandburg's one-volume "Lincoln." Then there are a few novels and other works. But build your own inventory, too. Once you've formed the partnership, you can never again be poor. Suburbia Today, April 1962