Most of you know that I am a reader and literature enthusiast. More
than that…. I am a
classic literature
enthusiast, there is a great distinction there. Trust me, choosing my major in
English was not because I felt it would be the most practical or lucrative
degree in the world. Rather I felt I could not choose anything else because that
is what I loved.
When life gets busy sometimes it is easy to neglect those friends on
shelves. Oftentimes the Bible will be the only book I read throughout the day,
I am sorry to say that I have done so for weeks at a time in the last few
years. (Although, next to “what would Jesus do” I do keep in mind, “what would
Jane do” and therefore do not go very long without picking up Pride and Prejudice or one of her other
magnificent works.)
However, since my conquering Les
Miserables I have been going through an amazing enlightenment in regards to
my reading, this world we live in, the habits we keep, the compromises we make etc.
Can you learn all that from an irrelevant book written hundreds of years ago?
Oh yes, you can.
And so I have gone into something of a reading frenzy… well as frenzied
as one can get in the midst of all the other necessities of life (and yes,
watching an episode of some mystery in the
evening with my parents is one of
those necessities). But not just any books. I have decided to ban modern
literature for a time, maybe forever. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to be
bashing any of you Harry Potter or Twilight lovers. I have had my fair share of
enjoyment from a Nicholas Sparks novel myself. But those go only so far as to
entertain. If you want something deeper, I am afraid you will have to go a
century back to find it.
The reason why I love reading is not merely for the sake of
entertainment, I want to be inspired, I want to be challenged, I want to be
enlightened, and yes, I even want to be convicted. The morals that existed in
societies of the past are so far above the societal norms of today, and it inevitably
comes across in the story.
I am appalled to discover how many classical works I have not read! But
not for long, one by one I will make friends with the great characters penned
by great authors, both the obscure and the renowned.
I recently read several books by E.D.E.N Southworth, which I highly
recommend. Such a book would be stuck in the religious category and rarely read
in today’s society. But when she wrote it, it was common belief, common
thought, common values. Oh how far we have fallen!
Here is a brief quote that demonstrates the faith strewn throughout the
book which sits juxtaposed to the world we live in now. The character quotes, “I
do love to live in an atmosphere of Christianity, and I hate to live out of it…
[those individuals] were such irredeemable atheists. There was never a visit to
church, never a prayer, never a grace, never a chapter from the Bible, never
any sort of acknowledgement of their creator, never the slightest regard to His
laws.” (from Self- Raised).
The character laments a hedonist acquaintance. But is her description
not consistent with our society on a whole? Is she not speaking of books
written today, movies, music, television, news, the work place, the schools…. Everywhere.
And so, this quote struck a nerve within me as I looked at the vast
difference between the two societies. Yes, the ones of the past have always
been imperfect, yet the Western world has never overlooked God so much as we do
now. It is always refreshing to make friends with people who are like minded –
even if those friends are old authors and the characters they create.
