A Yule-Time Book Flood

Ridgeview will resume its annual tradition of a Yule-time book flood, or Jólabókaflóðið as it goes by in Iceland. This is a tradition we embrace at our school for three reasons. First, reading, but more importantly, the promotion of reading as a joy is something that every school ought to regard as one of its foremost duties. Second, it should preference texts that it believes are more worthwhile than others—there should not be any anodyne relativism in this. Finally, it should assert that the education of students is not a thing that stands apart from the edification of the community they are drawn from.

As a preface to our conversation though, what is Jólabókaflóðið? The Icelandic people, like their cousins in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, have long been stalwart and voracious readers. Various polls and studies affirm the view that they read more than those in other nations, and whether because of the long winters, situated as they are atop the globe, or some other cultural idiosyncrasy, the book trade has done exceptionally well in these countries.

In Iceland around Christmastime, the book trade releases an annual catalogue of available books, which are then bought by the thousands and given as gifts. These books are typically gifted to friends and family to begin reading in the quiet hours of Christmas Eve. In an effort to inaugurate a new tradition, Ridgeview has produced its own Christmas catalogue to bring more books to more families, to spread good and wholesome cheer over the winter months, and to encourage everyone in our community to read purely for the joy of doing so.

First, it is a common refrain in discussing books with friends: “I think I would have enjoyed it more had it not been required reading.” I came to it begrudgingly and had other’s views imposed upon me. I was set to someone else’s deadline. I rushed through it and answered their questions at the expense of those I might have posed. This is not true of every book we read for school, but it is true of too many. In youth, we read because we are told to, then later for grades in hopes and anticipation of admissions to still other institutions that will have us do likewise, then for jobs, for income, for promotions, and occasionally for whatever social status may attend having been seen or known to have read such and such a thing. Arguably, all of this has a deleterious effect on reading as a joy. To hear a person, any person, but especially a young person, say, “I don’t really enjoy reading,” or, “Oh, so you’re a reader?” feels grating because reading is such an essential and intrinsic part of being human. Put another way, reading makes us more human, and enjoying reading ensures that we will come to it on our own long after the authoritarian prodding and superficial social prompts fade.

It is hard to comprehend how themes integral to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbit would not resonate, or how the sense of adventure, whether read aloud or to oneself, would not appeal. Millions though make reference to it without ever having read it, and if the best they can do is to say they saw the film, it’s a poorer version than reading poetry in translation—at best, they’ve seen another person’s interpretation of it and had their senses bombarded in a way only film can do. Jack Schaefer’s Shane, published in 1949, does something similar, and arguably, most potently for young boys. One critic said of it that if “you are only going to read one Western, read Shane.” The titular character shares a certain overlap with what Jordan Peterson controversially said in speaking about and to young men, “A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very, very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control. And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of.” If you want this idea flushed out and built up with narrative intensity, as Robert Nott wrote in his introduction of the book, “Shane is dangerous, but he is good.” And, of course, not everything that would be useful or enjoyable to us needs to come at us from the oblique angles of fiction. Sometimes, we just need to get unstuck in order to make better sense of our busy and convoluted lives. Something like Atomic Habits by James Clear might not be a panacea, but discovering how to go about making ourselves just one percent better every day is an antidote to complacency and the kind of mediocrity that is corrosive to joy. 

Second, in what is one of the most notable passages in J.S. Mill’s Utilitarianism, which students read as part of their coursework in moral philosophy, Mill asserts that it is better to be an unsatisfied Socrates than a satisfied pig. His point is that higher-order pleasures are more valuable than baser or animalistic pleasures because they are more resonant with a human being’s potential and unique nature. Similar to Mill in this respect, or perhaps the other way round, Aristotle contended that the life of contemplation was, in some sense, the ultimate end for human beings. “The life of the intellect is the best and pleasantest for man, because the intellect more than anything else is the man. Thus, it will be the happiest life as well.” Obviously, it would be strange were a philosopher to call out the pursuit of wealth, or sensualism, or hedonism, or the pursuit of political power as the pathway to the fullest or most perfect happiness, but it seems rather true, and the historical endurance of these texts seems to suggest as much.

In life, we do not see motive, but rather, we suspect it. In a novel, an author can give us a kind of x-ray vision. In a sense, we understand characters better than we do people. In fact, for a talented author, it does not even need to be a person. Such is the case with Jack London’s The Call of the Wild published in 1901 in which the reader follows Buck, a 140-pound St. Bernard-Scotch Shepherd mix into the Yukon. Sometimes it is an historical figure: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is more familiar to most, even those who’ve not read or seen the play, than Julius Caesar. How many quote, “Eh tu, Brute?” or “Cowards die many times before their death; the valiant never taste of death but once”? It is a shame that more know less of Caesar than of Shakespeare’s Caesar, but shameful too that many quote what they’ve no fuller context for. Or, we can enter into the thoughts of an entire culture, a civilizational period, a people in something like Mikhail Bulgakov’s incomparable Master and Margarita, which was published under intense censorship by the YMCA in 1967.

Finally, none of us ever graduates from reading. Unfortunately, most of us tend to graduate from meaningful reading, which could be done for pleasure, to mostly unpleasurable reading done to make ends meet. We read e-mails for work rather than books for pleasure or personal growth. This is a shame of course, because our children pick up on it and look forward to a day when they too will no longer have to read.

On a recent podcast, a former UFC fighter and Green Beret named Tim Kennedy was speaking about having co-founded a school called Apogee, and he was emphasizing a philosophy that reiterates much of what Ridgeview has tried to cultivate over the past twenty years; namely, conversations in classrooms with students (seminars), but also among faculty (faculty seminars) and among parents (parent reading groups). Reading as a community priority, not just as a part of a student’s education. Fitness as a family value and the encouragement to get outdoors, and character development as something worthy of our attention and reflection beyond our time as students. In other words, our school cannot be a thing apart from our homes—not by its code or culture. Specifically, if reading is important here, it must be important there.

C.S. Lewis was adamant that there were books that might appeal to children, but there was no great children’s literature. His argument for this may not win over everyone, but it is interesting to consider just two books written decades apart, both of which have been targeted at children, and ask whether they do not pose important questions. The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau published in 2003 and George Orwell’s Animal Farm published in 1945. The latter novel is even populated with anthropomorphic characters and is effectively a satirical allegory about Stalin’s Russia, and yet even to the adult mind, it is replete with themes that cannot but resonate.

Why read? The answer C.S. Lewis provided in the epilogue to An Experiment in Criticism was, “We seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves.” This is succinct and rings with truth, and an elaboration of this sentiment can be had from dipping into Lewis’ The Reading Life. All of the books mentioned herein, and hundreds more, are available for purchase from Ridgeview’s bookshop, and we encourage you to pick a few titles and share the worlds that they contain with your loved ones this holiday season.

D. Anderson

Headmaster

Ridgeview Classical Schools