Fire and Knowledge

Part of the The Reading Interviews series.

Could you tell us a little about yourself?

My name is Jeremy A. and I live with my wife Rachel and my one year old daughter Darcy in Judah, Indiana. I am an accountant working in the financial reporting department of a nonprofit. After spending the first quarter of our lives as Pentecostals, Rachel and I joined the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in January 2004.

What are your favorite books? What do you like about them and how have they influenced you?

Anything by Wendell Berry, but What Are People For? remains dear to me as the first book of his I read. His work has given me a more humane view of life. Berry rescued me from a descent into crass anarchocapitalism, a political philosophy where the free market represents the supreme good in society. Reading Berry is as refreshing as a beautiful summer day. Living as he does is not always possible for some of us, but we need to listen to him and honor him for his rooted wisdom.

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. These books have opened my imagination and given me joy with every reading. I really do know what C.S. Lewis meant when he said of the series, "here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron. Here is a book which will break your heart."

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Sometimes you just need a good romance – and this is one of the best. To quote Peter Leithart, "Real men read Jane Austen."

Loyalty: An Essay on the Morality of Relationships by George P. Fletcher. As I witnessed the betrayal of some friends of mine I came to the conviction that loyalty was a much neglected virtue. In typical fashion I went looking for a book to see if anyone agreed with me. This book confirmed and clarified my belief. Its philosophy is fundamental to the way I view the world.

Ecclesiastes by The Qoheleth. Here is some hard-bitten wisdom. The guy may be grouchy, but at least he’s honest.

Who are your favorite writers?

Wendell Berry for the reasons given above. Scott Russell Sanders is a writer akin to Berry, with the added bonus of being an English professor at Indiana University, near my home. Gerhard Forde is an excellent Lutheran theologian and a clear writer. Anthony Esolen, a contributing editor for Touchstone Magazine, is a bold soul who always helps me see in new ways. C.S. Lewis – for all the usual reasons. N.T. Wright is one of those rare scholars who combines erudition with readable prose. And when I weary of the weight of these writers’ thoughts I’ll pick up P.G. Wodehouse to lighten the mood.

What is the best non-fiction and fiction book you have read recently?

Non-fiction: Justification by Faith: A Matter of Death and Life by Gerhard Forde. This book not only reignited my interest in theology but also presented fresh ways of thinking about justification. Forde has clarified several issues for me.

Fiction: How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn. Llewellyn’s prose is forceful and full of emotion. I was drawn powerfully into Huw Morgan’s world of Welsh coalminers. It is a book I will be reading again and again.

Why do you think reading is important? What has led you to make it a priority in your life?

My wife has asked me this same question but in a more mockingly exasperated form. I always answer, "I want to understand." "What?" "Well, everything." Now, while I don’t really expect to realize my goal, I am thoroughly enjoying the attempt. Where else but in books can we have access to the greatest minds of our race? Reading is like participating in a discussion that was already well under way at the time of the Old Testament patriarchs. I want to understand that discussion and, if I feel extremely hubristic, contribute a word or two.

Are there any other books you would like to recommend?

• Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt by Anne Rice. Moving fictional account of the childhood of Jesus, informed by modern NT scholarship.
• Between Noon and Three by Robert Farrar Capon. A parable about God’s scandalous grace.
• Who Moved My Blackberry? by Lucy Kellaway. Office humor.
• Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. Learn how your emotions work.
• Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy by Matthew Scully. A conservative and Christian look at our treatment of animals.

How many books do you normally read at a time?

No more than two. Reading multiple books simultaneously distracts me. If something else catches my attention or I am bored with the book I am reading I simply stop and pick up something else. I used to think it was a mark of virtue to finish every book I picked up. Not longer. Reading should be enjoyable.

Do you mark and take notes while you read? If so, how?

The thought of marking in my books horrifies me. I insist on clean pages. I do, however, take notes occasionally. Usually this will take the form of a blog post, either as a simple quotation or a more extended reflection.

Do you have any advice about reading that others might find helpful?

1. Read judiciously, not profligately. Find the best books on the subject and take your time.
2. Follow C.S. Lewis’s advice: "It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones."
3. Avoid reading books like a gunslinger. The purpose of reading is not more notches in your belt, but the acquisition of wisdom.

Jeremy A. blogs at Eating Words.

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?

–John Steinbeck, East of Eden (1952), p. 411

“People are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen. And I here make a rule—a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting—only the deeply personal and familiar.”

–Lee in John Steinbeck, East of Eden (1952), p. 268

“No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us. What a great burden of guilt men have!”

–Lee in John Steinbeck, East of Eden (1952), p. 266

I’ve added “Mark Twain’s Rules of Story Writing” as an appendix to “A Guide to Writing Well.”

Is a story interesting without drama? Without good guys and bad guys? Without both good and evil? Drama, tragedy, complication and other such techniques make stories interesting.

Why is that? Natural disasters are horrible – yet we like to read about them, talk about them, watch them on television. Murder is one of the worst things a person can do – yet we enjoy reading books and watching movies about murders. We are obviously very complicated. Or insane.

Perhaps we do this because good and evil actually exist, and we understand that evil is necessary. Life wouldn’t be interesting without evil. And goodness wouldn’t seem so good. Spring is beautiful, but it would not seem so beautiful if winter did not precede it. Or, to use Augustine’s famous analogy, a painting would not be so beautiful without a balance of dark colors and light colors.

Or perhaps we do this because there is no good and evil, and we project our experiences onto stories in order to cope with them. Since we have to deal with death, we like to read about death. It comforts us and helps us understand this crazy world.

I’ll take the answer that has good and evil.

The novelist, then, has been encouraged to explore the boundless non-visual world, as the movie maker has taken over much of his former jurisdiction over the fantasy world of sight, sound, and action.

–Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 129

If ever a myth had become fact, had been incarnated, it would be just like this. And nothing else in all literature was like this. Myths were like it in one way. Histories were like it in another. But nothing was simply like [Christianity].

–C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (1955), p. 236