Dr. Benny Peiser 18.01.2012 00:09 +Feedback
Is Reading Good Books Over?
Victor Davis Hanson: There is great “truth and beauty” in Homer’s Iliad, but I would not try to make his sale on such platitudes. Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire remains a classic. But I confess it can be hard to get through. Conrad’s Victory or Knut Hamsun’s Growth of the Soil, if authored by writer X this year, would be trashed on Amazon. So what are the reasons, in this age of the iPhone, Xbox, and PlayStation — or Fox News blondes and HBO — to sit down and read old stuff for an hour or two each week? Here are a few reasons other than the usual defense of the “classics,” the “canon,” and the glories of “Western civilization.” Full essay here