The Old Books and the Quest for Knowledge

There is a great scene in Whit Stillman’s film Metropolitan where the two main characters are talking about literature. The girl is a big fan of Jane Austen whom the boy in turn criticizes. The problem is, though, he has never actually read Jane Austen, just Lionel Trilling’s criticism of her work. He defends this practice by saying, basically, that this way the critic does the work for you and saves you the time to read more criticism.

I remember watching this in grad school and thinking of how closely it approximated the way we were taught to approach literature in school—to be sure, read the primary works or at least one section that is pertinent to your paper, but the real place of intellectual engagement is with other critics.

But in the film, as in life, it is apparent that the girl’s simple admiration for Austen is a better way to live than the boy’s cold detachment. And, I would argue, it is more fruitful intellectually. Austen gave the girl both knowledge and delight. What Trilling gave the boy is the appearance of knowledge, without really knowing anything at all. He felt as if he knew Austen after reading Trilling, but all he really knew was Trilling. And Trilling is a poor substitute for Austen.

I am not saying there is not a place for criticism, just that it bears the most fruit if you are already grounded in the actual texts that come under the critical microscope, or you use those works of criticism as a springboard into further reading. Rowan Williams’s recent book on Dostoevsky sent me back to Dostoevsky, wanting to know more and wanting to read a couple of his novels that I had not yet read. This is great, but if you read criticism without any idea of the substance of what the critic is addressing, or read it to tell you what to think about a certain subject, then criticism can make you dismissive and arrogant, thinking that if this PhD I respect already dealt with this author then why bother?

C.S. Lewis, commending the reading of the old books in an article entitled “On the Reading of Old Books,” points out the following:

“There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about "isms" and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that firsthand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than secondhand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.”

I have long seen this to be true in my own reading life. I remember literally trembling the first time I opened the cover of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, practically in fear that I would not be able to comprehend a word. But of course that was not true. And I imagine it is certainly true that I learned a good deal more reading Calvin than I did reading about Calvin. Reading about Calvin is a bit like working one’s ways through the Gospels topically. You can learn a certain amount about prayer or some other thing (useful information, to be sure), but you also miss out on a lot, not the least of which is the notion that a subject such as prayer cannot be abstracted from the other teachings of our Lord. So if people want to know what Calvin said about a hot button topic, like predestination, they are far better served reading the entirety of his systematic theology than they are typing in ‘predestination’ at Project Gutenberg and excerpting whatever they happen to find.

Google and our broader world of technology have taught us to do the latter. There is nothing in our culture, including our education system, teaching us to embrace the former. It is a notably harder way, but infinitely more fulfilling and true to the actual complexities of life and faith.