Christopher Rush

When last we were together, our parting thoughts were about the impending excitement of the forthcoming summer and the potential for enjoyable, self-directed reading time.  I hope you were able to spend some portion of this past summer break doing just that: reading what you wanted, free from assignments, discussions, and tests — of course, ideally you did discuss what you were reading with friends and family, sharing and gathering thoughts, reactions, and insights about how your reading aligned, to whatever degree, with reality.  Ideally, at times, you read for the sheer pleasure of doing it, too.  True, some of your reading was no doubt for the required summer work, so you had to write some brief responses to some easy questions, but that never interferes with too much of your vacation time.

My plan for the summer, enumerated for all the world to see, certainly helped me at times, but, as is often the case, I was carried by various unnamed whims and fancies to read other things I had not even thought of when I first made that list last spring.  Ironically enough, shortly after school started this fall, I began reading The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs.  His main premise is reading is and should be pleasurable, and the best way to maintain that experiential satisfaction is to read what we feel like reading, not just reading books from people’s lists of “must-read” books, since that is more of a chore than a quality reading experience.  He convolutes his ideas by arbitrarily distinguishing between whim and “Whim,” a neologistic piece of thaumaturgy no one who can outwit a used teabag will find convincing, and arguing against an outright hedonistic approach to reading by urging us to read higher quality things.  I could tell early on, from his initial diatribe against Mortimer Adler as an elitist (as if that is somehow a bad thing), it wasn’t going to be a good book.  His premise is somewhat sound, but the notion we shouldn’t read books just because they are on “must-read” lists and someone tells us to do it instead of letting “Whim” lead us to the book at the right time is, fundamentally, preposterous.  Most of the great reads we experience are from recommendations or gifts from people we trust — at least that’s how it’s been for me.  Perhaps you disagree — in that case, read Jacobs’s book and tell me what you think.  Of course, if you do, you will contradict what you claim you believe.  A nasty pickle.

My motivation for going off the lists for a time may seem akin to what Jacobs urges, but I wasn’t intentionally rejecting any external authority to guide my reading.  I did read a few things from the list I made, and I enjoyed some of them more than others.  Unlike Jacobs, I have no problem reading things because people tell me they are good — most of the time, they are right.  I don’t always think “the classics” are great, but usually they are.  I found King’s Solomon’s Mines horrible, but I finished it and now can explain to people why I don’t like it primarily because I finished it.  Jacobs’s urging to stop reading books we don’t like is rather weak-willed.  So, too, is his argument against “having read” things.  There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with reading books primarily to “have read” them.  The experiential pleasure of the moments of reading is so ephemeral, he seems to be arguing, as mentioned above, for a hedonistic approach to reading with no substantial foundation for it.  “Having read” books is a great position to be in, even if you were only motivated to read the books because you got them from some list or were assigned to do it, even if you didn’t like the book you read.

The book I read first was my required reading, Saving Leonardo by Nancy Pearcey.  Apparently some confusion existed about whether this was actually the book assigned to the faculty to read during the summer, but I can distinctly remember being told to read it, so I did.  It’s fairly easy to tell how influential Dr. Schaeffer was on Pearcey, which is not a negative thing, but it soon makes one wish one was reading Dr. Schaeffer instead of Ms. Pearcey.  Saving Leonardo is her humanities sequel to her previous work Total Truth (God in science).  It was fine, and it gave me quite a few helpful ideas for Intro. to Humanities, but again, it might be better to go with the works of Dr. Schaeffer instead, if you need a Christian perspective on art.

I made some minor progress through Mason & Dixon, but I got carried away with my rediscovered enjoyment of comic books and graphic novels to really want to struggle through Pynchon’s painfully-clever prose.  I had a fine time reading Chris Claremont’s From the Ashes, Wolverine, and X-Tinction Agenda (though he didn’t write all those issues), and they motivated me to read more of the Chris Claremont issues I have long owned without yet reading: I finally read Mutant Massacre, too.  It was quite interesting to see the development in the teams and their stories at a quick pace, reading different crossover events over a decade’s time in rapid succession.  As we all hopefully know, Chris Claremont is widely regarded as the greatest writer in X-Men history, creating some of the most memorable characters and storylines of all time.  Ironically enough, the first X-Men comic I ever bought was Uncanny X-Men 281, the first issue after Claremont’s 15-year run, so I have been playing catch-up ever since.  Finally reading many of his stories this summer was enjoyable, though he certainly did earn his reputation as a verbose wordsmith.  It takes a lot longer to read his issues than, say, Peter David’s issues (as you may recall from last year’s article on the great X-Cutioner’s Song crossover), but the effort is well worth it.  Having finally acquired the four issues of the Magik limited series, I read that early into the summer — it was far more sorrowful than I was prepared for, but the resolution of it was quite impressive.  Toward the end of the summer, I finally acquired and read the thoroughly astounding God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel, which is so far superior to X2 it’s not even worth discussing.  Everyone should read God Loves, Man Kills, even those who are not fans of comic books, graphic novels, or the X-Men (if such people even exist).  Another Claremont highlight of the summer was finally getting started on the New Mutants.  I’ve been collecting those back issues for a while now, but since the earliest ones are often quite expensive (I have been avoiding ordering comics on-line, since deep down I feel like that’s sort of cheating), I haven’t read any of them yet — until I recently learned many of them have been collected in fine quality, comparatively inexpensive trade paperbacks: the recent reissuing of so many classic Silver, Bronze, and Copper Age stories and series is the only good decision Marvel has made for about a decade (everything seemed to fall apart with the whole Onslaught thing).  Some might say buying trade paperbacks is even worse cheating than ordering individual issues, but that’s a price I and my honor are willing to pay (especially if I get them as gifts).  I enjoyed New Mutants Classic 1, including long-sought-after Marvel Graphic Novel #4, and just before the school year started, I ordered and began New Mutants Classic 2.  Good times.  Then I decided to start X-Men from the beginning — this is taking some time, but it is quite interesting to see where it all began (and in order).

With my decade-long hiatus from graphic novels complete, I thought it was also time (now that I’m now firmly entrenched in adulthood) to move on to more grown-up kinds of graphic novels, so I began reading Fables, Y: The Last Man, and, at the end of the summer, The Sandman.  These are series you definitely want to wait for; though they are all “good” in their own narratively-creative ways, journeying through them must be intentional for intellectual purposes, since they offer few accurate insights into reality — but knowing their fallen answers can be beneficial in a roundabout way, too, if done at the right time, after one is firmly secure in one’s proper Biblical spiritual maturity.

Also toward the end of the summer, I slogged my way through Shadow Lord by Laurence Yep.  This was supposedly a Star Trek novel, but Yep communicates quite clearly and early he has no genuine intention of writing a Star Trek novel, but instead he is one of those “I want to be a serious writer, but only the Star Trek people are accepting submissions, so I’ll pretend to write a Star Trek book even though I have no idea who these characters are or how to write (for) them, and that way I’ll be a published author” writers.  The book is not a total washout, but it is thoroughly disappointing as a Star Trek book.  Unlike The Final Reflection, Shadow Lord does not succeed as an atypical Star Trek book, primarily because, as I just mentioned, Yep has no interest in writing about the Star Trek characters accurately.  His Mr. Spock characterization is especially atrocious.  Yep has him making jokes, grabbing hands, and several other inaccuracies that anyone even mildly familiar with his character would not make (certainly not anyone earnestly trying to tell a Star Trek story).  The story is a jumbled conglomeration of things Yep likes: cavalier swordplay, “witty” heroes, Indiana Jones-like serials, samurai, and pre-Victorian musketry.  It’s almost like he thought “I wonder what would happen if Indiana Jones and d’Artagnan found themselves under a shōgunite.”  As I said, it’s a bit of a mess.  The one saving element of the story is Lord Bhima, the last survivor of the old guard, who is willing to sacrifice himself and, more importantly, his honor, to side with the (lacking in discernible motivation) antagonist even in horrific regicide (which is downplayed in seriousness, unfortunately, and utterly forgotten by the end of the book) — all to prevent their planet from succumbing to a far-worse fate: Federation influence.  Had Yep made this a real Star Trek book, from the perspective of a world divided over its willingness to join/be influenced by the Federation, and not just crammed all his hobbies into one book without caring about the Star Trek universe, this could have been something good.  I’m not glad about the content, but I’m glad I have now read it.

Since I’m still not half-way through Mason & Dixon, I knew it wouldn’t be right to start Don Quixote, so I didn’t.  I tossed in Voyages of the Imagination and Elfstones of Shannara more for giggles, since Voyages is an incredibly long (and useful) resource on the history of Star Trek fiction, which I am slowly working through, but it’s not really a book designed to be read through.  I started Elfstones several years ago, and my bookmark is still where I left it, but the motivation to return to it is another ephemeral sensation.  I read the first half of “Madame Crowl’s Ghost” by Le Fanu (not the book, just that story), learned a fortiori why Le Fanu is considered a master of suspense and terror, waited several weeks to finish it (once my sleeping patterns had returned to normal), and decided I really did not need to read the rest of Le Fanu’s book (this became part of the motivation for an article appearing later).

I was quite surprised (in a thoroughly disappointed sort of way) how few resources are out there related to the kind of program Intro. to Humanities is supposed to be.  Most of them are variations on what we already do in the English department, just at exorbitant prices and from atheistically-biased perspectives.  This enabled me (in a thoroughly out of desperate necessity sort of way) to create the program from scratch.  Due to the time-consuming nature of such an endeavor, I was forced to eschew the plan to complete Colossians and Philemon from Prison Epistles last year.  Some day.  No doubt the same day I get around to Copleston.

The other two from the list I got to were Slaughterhouse-Five and Where There’s a Will.  I got the Vonnegut book from Sarah Haywood, one of the most underappreciated students we’ve ever had at Summit.  It was typical Vonnegut and better than Cat’s Cradle, and I’m glad I got the chance to read it (even if he is usually wrong about how the world works).  Rex Stout’s Where There’s a Will was a very good Nero Wolfe mystery.  It was a fast-paced, sleek mystery showing off his improved pacing over the earlier stories.

Off the list, I read some more Italo Calvino (Why Read the Classics?), got back into Centennial, Avengers: The Contest (another recent TPB I’ve been trying to get ahold of for years), Literature: A Crash Course, Books are Tremendous (books are, but this little pamphlet wasn’t), The Historical Novelist’s Obligation to History (a difficult pamphlet to find from the author of Andersonville, but worth it), and lastly The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education (seriously … don’t bother).  The books I most enjoyed reading not on my list were the final four M*A*S*H books: M*A*S*H Goes to Texas, M*A*S*H Goes to Montreal, M*A*S*H Goes to Moscow, and M*A*S*H Mania.  When I say “enjoyed reading,” though, I don’t mean that I necessarily enjoyed the content.  Texas was certainly the worst of all the Herbert Butterworth installments, and Richard Hooker’s finale with Mania is painfully flawed on many levels.  They had good moments, though, enough to make reading them worthwhile (in addition to the great pleasure of having finally read all installments in the series), despite what Jacobs says about reading “just because.”  After that, I moved to the James Bond series.  I finished Casino Royale during the calm, quiet moments when we were without electricity during the recent hurricane and Live and Let Die a few weeks after that.  Be prepared to find few similarities with the movie incarnations early in the novel series.

All in all, it was a good reading summer (one of the few highlights of an otherwise taxing and draining season), mainly because I went into it with a plan and also enjoyed the freedom to follow whatever reading mood I was in when I wanted to be more spontaneous.  I’m still looking forward to reading The Demon Princes, The Man in the High Tower, Othello, Last and First Men, Asking the Right Questions, and The Princess Casamassima (and the other 11,000 works sitting around the house).  It would be good to read those.  At the very least, it will be good to have read those.