What Books Do for the Human Soul
What is the connection between books and the human soul? Do we need books to help shape and influence our identity? What would life look like without books? Do books make us better? Maria Popova writes about this in a weekly blog called BrainPickings stating that, “The question of what reading does for the human soul is an eternal one and its answer largely ineffable, but this hasn’t stopped minds big and small from tussling with it.” (see full article here: http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/09/school-of-life-literature-reading/)
Ray Bradbury writes a pretty convincing tale about our need for books, in his book Farenheit 451.
While reading Bradbury’s story, I thought, “Ray, you are preachin’ to the choir.” Being a book lover, I can’t imagine a world without books. I collect vintage children’s books, refuse to read books on a screen, belong to the children’s literature association in my town, and spend considerable time at the library (I am pretty proud of the fact that I am on a first-name basis with my local librarian). Clearly, I believe that books are amazing and important but while reading Popova’s article wondered what do they do for the soul?
Popova writes that the answer is found in a four-point perspective written by Alain de Botton on the rewards of reading.
He explains:
1. IT SAVES YOU TIME
It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver — because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly. Literature is the greatest reality simulator — a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.
2. IT MAKES YOU NICER
Literature performs the basic magic of what things look like though someone else’s point of view; it allows us to consider the consequences of our actions on others in a way we otherwise wouldn’t; and it shows us examples of kindly, generous, sympathetic people.
Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system — the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side — they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-conscious, and cynical world.
3. IT’S A CURE FOR LONELINESS
We’re weirder than we like to admit. We often can’t say what’s really on our minds. But in books we find descriptions of who we genuinely are and what events, described with an honesty quite different from what ordinary conversation allows for. In the best books, it’s as if the writer knows us better than we know ourselves — they find the words to describe the fragile, weird, special experiences of our inner lives… Writers open our hearts and minds, and give us maps to our own selves, so that we can travel in them more reliably and with less of a feeling of paranoia or persecution…
4. IT PREPARES YOU FOR FAILURE
All of our lives, one of our greatest fears is of failure, of messing up, of becoming, as the tabloids put it, “a loser.” Every day, the media takes us into stories of failure. Interestingly, a lot of literature is also about failure — in one way or another, a great many novels, plays, poems are about people who messed up… Great books don’t judge as harshly or as one-dimensionally as the media…
“Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others — because it’s a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.”
I couldn’t agree more. Now back to my book…
I’ve always had trouble communicating my thoughts and ideas, and as a child, and today as an adult, I’ve troubled myself over communicating those thoughts clearly. Books have always been my escape. Books get me! Just as is written above, one dives into a book to find himself, because in those books, “In the best books, it’s as if the writer knows us better than we know ourselves — they find the words to describe the fragile, weird, special experiences of our inner lives…”
I’ve always had trouble expressing myself verbally and as a child and as an adult I would dive into my books where the stories were because in those books I would come across those words that best described how I was feeling and/or find what I really wanted to say. So I agree with the premise of this article and especially with that of point 3 that, “In the best books, it’s as if the writer knows us better than we know ourselves — they find the words to describe the fragile, weird, special experiences of our inner lives…”
I really love how this address a lot of the fact that we live in a horrible world that focuses on the things that are detrimental to our souls. I honestly agree that by reading books it helps us be able to step out of the cynical world we live in and see people as normal people. I especially like the last one about being prepared for failure. I love reading a book with people that aren’t perfect and super special, it is so nice to read about people who struggle and can make wrong decisions. As well as the point before that about curing loneliness, because there have been many times I turn to books to cheer me up, and rarely do they fail! The best way to get happy again is by reading children’s picture books!
I think you left one out. Reading is a way I connect to people, fictional and non-fictional. I relate first to what a character is feeling in a book. At the same time it has been something that has brought my family together over the years. We talk about books together, when we were younger my parents would read us book aloud, and we often acted out the scenes from the books we had read or heard as children.
Although I’ve been an avid reader most of my life, I have never thought about reading as a way to save time in accessing a wider range of emotions. Thank you for the thoughts, these are all great points.
I love reading books, and just this short article alone has shown me that books help you in so many ways. I grew up with almost no friends so knowing it can help with loneliness helps me to understand why I was such a heavy reader when I was young. This world is full of many tales created by the human mind, written out on sheets of paper to disperse among the world. Each story different, some with the same ideas and morals all leaving us with a taste of something we have never experienced before. I love the idea that we can basically travel with books, going places far and near experiencing things both terrifying and beautiful.
I haven’t always reading books. I feel I matured academically much later in life. It wasn’t until I was a mother that reading became more important to me. When I was in first grade I was a wiggly, busy little person and at reading time my teacher got frustrated with me and pick me up and shook me and then sat down and mimicked me. I was fractured for the next 25 years and felt extreme self conscious of my ability and confidence in reading. Now fast forward those 25 years and I had my first child and I began to revisit reading here and there to find solution to my questions as a parent. I has changed my life and I absolutely can’t imagine life without reading and books. It has increased my world 10 fold and I have learned so many things and continue to learn. I agree with all the authors and their perspective of the power and influence literature has on it’s readers. I am a nicer person and I glean from real and imaginary people and their challenges. I also agree it helps with loneliness. and saves me great time and heartache from the stories that have influences my life.
This article made me wish I had read more as a child. It probably would have immensely helped my desire to read even today! It is so critical for children to read now than ever before because it gives them a break from all the potentially harmful media influences that most of us are surrounded by.
I really love this article. I was very quiet when I was younger. I had all these feelings, and opinions, but I would never show any of them. I didn’t know how to express them, and that is probably one of the reasons I loved reading so much is just because I got to live vicariously through the characters in my book. I could feel what they felt, and see what they saw, and do what they did, and when I didn’t know how else to express an emotion I would write.. I believe reading helped me to “come out of my shell,” and to know how to express what I felt. There is nothing like getting lost in a good book. There are no words to describe how wonderful it is to just take a step back, and see things through someone else’s eyes..
That’s a really interesting way to look at reading, which makes me want to read some books and see what happens. I was someone who hated reading as a kid and so it takes a good book to steal my imagination away, to keep me in it and wanting to read it more and more. Thus, it has been a while since I have read a book, but if it is supposed to be very helpful in a lot of personal ways…I might start getting back into it. Just means I have to start finding some series to pick up.