Evening star., 1933-11-06
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRAcEHELL.

That any one ever finished reading
''The Faerie Queen" Is simply some
thing we do not believe at all
We even have grave doubts that any
human being ever completed Edward
Gibbons Decline and Fan of the Ro-
man Empire" but maybe it makes no
difference. Those lengthy works are
always good for Just more than saying
that one has finished them, whatever
that means; there are purple patches -
as some one said Of Shakespeare. in
| every one of them.
It used to be the fashion to brand q
man as ignorant II he admitted to never
| having read Dante, or Shakespeare, or
| Spenser, but today the more healthy
fashion is simply to feel that he has
| missed something, If 1t should have
chanced that these authors particularly
meet the needs of his own mind, and
he, as reader, has not had the good for
tune to find this out.
** %*
There Is no mystery or hocus-pocus
about reading enjoyment.
If readers would only trust their own
! judgments more, and learn to depend
less and less as they grow older on the
| opinions Of others, they would meet
their own reading problem In absolutely
! the best way.
Everybody has his own list of ten
bookS-and many more-which he has
not read, and probably never will.
The point Is that he probably is
hugely right about his own list.
II book cannot attract, at first by
its very title, and then, second, by its
general reputation, then it must admit
to failure there, with the individual
| reader concerned.
Every child has the worlds literature,
In some measure, thrown bodily at his
innocent head. From this process he
| mainly manages to get o distaste for
certain great books.
| Some persons find this process Ia
mentable In every way. 1t spoils the
great kingdom of bookdom beyond re-
| pair for them; it leaves bad taste In
their mouths for certain books. which,
had they not been crammed down their
throats, they would have found for
themselves all in good time.
**%*
ITO thine own self be true" was
spoken never so truly as Of ones
precious own likes and dislikes in books.
The trouble comes with the human
ego. 1t Is almost impossible to get some
persons to understand that there is no
hard and fast body of great literature"
in itself, but that all great books are
simply what their greatness does to the
reading mind, and that If book does
not have this effect, for you. then it
Is not great, for you. although it may
be surprising for somebody else.
The lists In the Nation reveal this
very well, They show again that most
human beings never agree on anything,
unless 1t is "T'he Faerie Queen" Yet
who would want Edmund Spenser's
gigantic poem to be lost, even if few
read it, and none ever finishes It?
Could any one get such a thing
printed today? No doubt he would 60
begging from publisher to publisher,
and probably the gentlemen would be
right, because it would not be In keep
ing with that intangible but neverthe-
less very rigid thing, the spirit Of the
times.
But every reader ought to make his
own spirit Of his own times. He should
not permit modernity to bamboozle him
| any more than he should be q slave to
ancient or medieval ages.
He should read what he wants to
read, because he likes 1t, Just as he may
refuse to eat spinach because he loatnes
the blamed stuff, no matter how good 1t
may be for him. And there Is every
chance at last that what one genuinely
| enjoys viii turn out to be the very best
for him, after all.