On Epigrams

I thought, heading in, that we could have an epigram (or two), but, like names and really everything but book selections, there was nothing I was totally sold on. So instead, I thought I would trot out the quotes about reading that might’ve been epigrams, and rather than being a part of the permanent furniture of the blog, they’d just be another post before the serious posting flies. So. For your viewing pleasure, and your general edification, here are some quotes I have picked up and thrown in the quote pile that pertain to reading, and a thought on a few of them, as well, provided for free. If you like one, or have one of your own to add, feel free to let loose.

“We read to know that we are not alone.” -- C.S. Lewis
This one I wonder about. It seems unclear as to who joins us when we read – authors, characters, fellow readers? Any of these seems unsatisfying. Authorial presences rarely make me feel less lonely, for one; neither do characters, for opposite reasons. I am not inventing worlds, and I do not ordinarily take myself to be a member of an invented world that depends on one omnipotent authorial other mind. Together, authors and their characters seem to provide a tutelary function that, while an incredibly useful and helpful part of reading, is no solace for loneliness. The other possibility – that we are less lonely for the presence of our fellow-readers – seems as though it might have obtained when there were still things to read that had been banned. Reading samizdat might remind you that you’re not alone, but there’s not a lot of samizdat out there today.

“I am naïve enough to read incessantly because I cannot, on my own, get to know people profoundly enough.” – Harold Bloom
This one, like the previous one, has an ambiguity in it – what people does Bloom come to know profoundly through reading? Again, I don’t think it’s quite other readers, or authors, or characters. I like this quote more than Lewis’s because it suggests an element of practicality about reading – Harold Bloom is getting something out of reading, that will later let him know the actual people he sees around New Haven more profoundly than otherwise. It takes reading out of just the author/reader/characters pas-de-trois, and reintroduces real other people back into the act of reading, which, in Lewis’s terms, seem to be limited to samizdateurs.

“Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.” – Walter Benjamin
This one, from Our Eponymous Essay, was my favorite both for its origin and for its sentiment. Unlike the first two quotes, it does a good job of elevating readerliness above something like a struggle for companionship: readers are just what writers wish they were. It’s also more of a bon mot than the other two, which is crucial in a consideration of epigrams.

But as I say, none of those erupt of the page as sealed deals. So for now, pending just about anything that can pend, we sojourn on, epigramless.

More later this week, finally, on The Road.