Review of Periodical Article:  “The Bookish Life” by Joseph Epstein.  Published in, First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion & Public Life, November of 2018, pp. 37-42

Subject:  Reading To Gain General Culture and Wisdom

(Check with your local educational institution or local public library on how to get a copy of Epstein’s article through their research databases; or use your access privileges from your local educational institution or local public library to research their databases to find the article.)

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Joseph Epstein (American writer, editor, and lecturer) in his article, “The Bookish Life,” discusses his attachment to the bookish life, which he defines as “…a life in which reading of books has a central, even dominating, place.”[i]  From this vantage point he gives his personal perspective of leading a bookish life by delving into aspects of reading that he finds important.  In the main these aspects are what makes a good book and what is pursued in reading good books as a general reader.

At the outset he makes clear that no one can read all the good books ever printed given the number of good books printed.  This leads to the impossibility of being a well-read person, and to the possibility that a person can be better-read than others at best.

Epstein then poses the question of how does a person recognize a good book.  He uses as a starting point the criteria of Economist, Alexander Gerschenkron (1904-1978) posited in his article “On Reading Books:  A Barbarian’s Cogitation’s” (American Scholar, Summer78, Vol. 47 Issue 3).  Gerschenkron’s criteria are good books must be interesting, memorable, and readable.  Epstein finds this advice sensible but not helpful:  “How can one know if a book is interesting until one has read it; memorable until time has or not has lodged it in one’s memory; and readable until decades pass and one feels the need to read it again and enjoys it all the more on doing so?[ii]  Epstein’s response to Gerschenkron’s criteria adumbrates some pf the facets of good books he will focus on later in his essay, which are reading for the pleasure of an author’s style and rereading authors.

Epstein eschews recommended reading lists for finding good books.  These may be fine for wanting to read in a specific subject area or to read within a profession.  For the all-purpose reader seeking understanding and wisdom from books, Epstein states:  “Such lists reveal a yearning for a direct route to wisdom.  Brace yourself for the bad news:  None is available.  If one wanted to establish expertise in a restricted field-economics, say, or art history, or botany-such as list might be might be useful.  But for the road of acquiring the body of unspecialized knowledge that goes by the name of general culture, sometimes known as the pursuit of wisdom, no blueprint, no plan, no shortcut exists, nor, as I hope to make plain, could it.” [iii] Epstein’s quote hits upon a basic aspect of his view of the bookish life:  reading for general culture.

In Epstein’s life, he began realizing the difference between good books, or substantive reading, and lesser books, or less substantive reading, when he transferred to the University of Chicago for his sophomore year.  At the University of Chicago, primary sources were used in subject areas and were required reading instead of textbooks.  He read the political treatises of Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) among other works.  He found this an exciting experience, especially at age 19, never having read such authors before, or even knowing how to pronounce some of their names before.  He states this exposure to good books: “Along with giving me firsthand acquaintance with some of the great philosophers, historians, novelists, and poets of the Western world, the elimination of that dreary, baggy-pants middleman called the textbook, gave me the confidence that I could read the most serious books.  Somehow it also gave me a rough sense of what is serious in the way of reading and what is not.”[iv]

Epstein considers whether the bookish life has an ultimate goal.  He finds that, “The bookish life can have no goal.  It is all means and no end.”[v]  However, he says there is a momentum in a bookish life.  This is to gain  general cultural and in this a modicum of wisdom in living one’s life from what one is reading.

Epstein uses quotes of the philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) to support his position on general reading.  Montaigne read widely but did not retain all of what he read.  Epstein notes that, besides being impossible to retain all one reads in one’s memory, there would be an issue of cramming one’s mind leaving little room for anything else.  Montaigne instead read for pleasure and for the good use of his leisure time to gain self-knowledge in order to understand how to live and die.  Epstein gives the essence of Montaigne’s view and then his similar view of reading as follows:  “What Montaigne sought in his reading, as does anyone who has thought about it, is to become more wise, not more learned or more eloquent.  As I put it elsewhere some years ago, I read for the pleasures of style and in hope of ‘laughter, exaltation, insight, enhanced consciousness,’ and like Montaigne, on a lucky day perhaps to pick up a touch of wisdom.”[vi]

In reading for the pleasure of style and for wisdom, Epstein makes some distinctions as to the speed of reading one does and to the book’s format that one will chose:  print, e-book, or audio books.

Epstein fines that reading for the pleasure of an author’s style is not commensurate with speed reading or with reading a page turner.  He likes to read slowly, thoughtfully, and seriously, with pencil in hand to underline and make notations in a book in order to savior the style and construction of a book.  He terms such books, “page-stoppers.”  He makes his point on this as follows:  “In the risky generalization department, slow readers tend to be better readers-more careful, more critical, and more thoughtful.  I myself rarely read more than twenty-five to thirty pages of a serious book in a single sitting.  Reading a novel by Thomas Mann, a short story by Chekhov, a historical work by Theodor Mommsen, essays by Max Beerbohm, why would I rush through them?  Savoring them seems more sensible.  After all, you never know when you will pass this way again.”[vii]

Epstein favors the printed book for reading for a book’s style and meaning over e-books as a format.  For audio books as a format, he is not pleased with some of the limitations audio books have for reading slowly and for pleasure of style.

There is a difference between e-books and books in print, or as he states,  “…the difference between words on pixel and words in print is discernible.”[viii]  Electronic reading devices have the convenience in storing a number of texts for reading and access, and electronic texts can readily make available reading for information.  But electronic texts hinder absorbing the substance of the writer’s content and appreciating an author’s style of writing.  One is more hurried when reading e-texts and is more likely to skim through the text to extract information.  Epstein concludes, “Pixels for information and convenience, then, print for knowledge and pleasure is my sense of the difference between the two.”[ix]

For audio books as a format, Epstein finds listening to audio books does not deliver pleasure for him.  He found displeasure in listening to his own books in print that were put into audio format.  The readers of his books read his prose with differing cadences than he took as his own cadences.  And beyond the reading of his own work, he finds that serious reading will not be accommodated by listening to audio books:  audio books do not permit the slowing down the time to read important passages and going back to reread important passages, both of which when reading a book would be accommodated.  He concludes that, “Reading and listening to someone else reading are two widely, I should even say wildly, different things.”[x]

Reading for an author’s substance and style brings to the forefront for Epstein the rereading of authors.  He finds that in rereading authors his understanding of those authors has evolved over time.

Epstein finds authors he read when younger upon rereading when older as being less notable reading.  He puts the books of Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) and Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) in this category.  Then he finds authors that he read and thought less notable when younger are far more notable when rereading as he got older.  He puts Willa Cather (1873-1947) in this category and he now considers her the greatest American novelist of the twentieth-century.  Interestingly, Cather refused to have her novels printed in editions for students to read in school.  To quote Epstein:  “Willa Cather, a writer I have come to admire as the greatest twentieth-century American novelist, chose not to allow any of her novels put into what she called ‘school editions,’ lest young students, having read her under duress of school assignments, never return to her books when they were truly ready for them.  She was no dope, Miss Cather.”[xi]

And, there are authors Epstein rereads with growing appreciation when rereading them again over time.  He places Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987) in this category with her novel, Memories of Hadrian.

Epstein sums up the more positive paths of the rereading of authors as follows: “The frisson afforded by rereading is the discovery not only of things one missed the first time around but of changes in oneself.”[xii]

Epstein finds one can be an avid reader, but one cannot be an all-encompassing reader; or as he puts it, “A great help in leading the bookish life is to recognize that as a reader, you might be omnivorous, but you can never be anywhere near omniscient.  The realization removes a great deal of pressure.”[xiii]  For Epstein understanding that he cannot be all knowing takes off feeling the pressure of having to read about other civilizations outside of Western civilization.  He believes that he has much more to learn about his own civilization and he keeps his focus on Western authors because of this.

Epstein views books as being companions that one forms relationships with.  This has two aspects.  First, books as friends means one spends time with books as one would spend time with one’s flesh-and-blood friends.  Books have benefits of being friends in that one wants to be in their company and regularly return to their company.  Second, reading good books puts one in the company of authors whose minds are greater than one’s own mind.  The effect of this is, to quote Epstein:  “Only by keeping company with those smarter than ourselves, in books or in persons, do we have a chance to become a bit smarter.”[xiv]

If books are rewarding companions, then finding books to read is a major matter, which for Epstein it is.  He particularly cherishes used book stores in which he has found treasures over the years.  He reads what is of interest to him.  His interests are far ranging and his reading is not systematic.  When a matter appeals to him, he then pursues it with intense reading.  He gives his focus on ancient Roman history as a recent example, and to quote him:  “Within the last few years, for example, caught up in a passion for all things Roman, I read Sallust, lots of Cicero, a great deal of Livy, some Appian, Polybius, Plutarch, Tacitus, Seneca, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Edward Gibbon, Theodor Mommsen, Ronal Syme, and more.  I read all not to gain mastery over the subject but for the pleasure and what I hope is the occasional insight into human nature across a vast stretch of time that reading about Rome brings.  I know no better ways to spend my days.”[xv]

And what of reading new books in the pursuit of finding books?  Epstein notes that the English literary critic William Hazlitt (1778-1830) did not like reading new books when there were so many good old books to read and reread.  Hazlitt wished he could read some new books that seemed notable but his commitments for reading lied elsewhere.  Epstein sympathizes with Hazlitt.  Though an author of current books himself, he finds that as he grows older, he realizes time is not infinite and therefore the choice of reading matter is of importance and his reading of older books over newer books will now prevail.

In closing his essay Epstein believes books are an essential part of living, and as such a balance needs to be struck between one’s reading books and how this relates to living one’s life.  This balance is found, to quote Epstein, as follows:  “One brings one’s experience of life to one’s reading, and one’s reading to one’s experience of life.  You can get along without reading serious books-many extraordinary, large-hearted, highly intelligent people have-but why, given the chance, would you want to?  Books make life so much richer, grander, more splendid.”[xvi]

Further, Epstein finds that in the bookish life the rewards received are not immediate.  But the engagement it offers will employ one over time to the steady influences of good books and to incremental gains in understanding life, which is gaining wisdom.

The next blog entry of October 18, 2023 will review Nicholas Stamstag’s speech, “Read–and Grow Up:  Be More Than a Specialist.”  The speech was given in 1960 to the Minneapolis Advertising Club (Minneapolis, Minnesota).  Joseph Eptstein and Nicholas Samstag would concur that intense reading in a subject area or interest for a period of time is gainful reading.  Samstag would term this kind of reading, “reading for immersion,’ which he favors and describes in his speech.

FOOTNOTES

[i] “A Bookish Life”, First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion & Public Life, November2018, 37

[ii] Ibid, 38

[iii] Ibid, 38

[iv] Ibid, 39

[v] Ibid, 39

[vi] Ibid, 39

[vii] Ibid, 39-40

[viii] Ibid, 39

[ix] Ibid, 39

[x] Ibid, 39

[xi] Ibid, 38

[xii] Ibid, 40

[xiii] Ibid, 40

[xiv] Ibid, 41

[xv] Ibid, 41

[xvi] Ibid, 42