Take a second to sincerely ask yourself: has literature improved my life? There’s often an immediate pinprick reaction to defend our most beloved stories, as if our safety blanket is being snatched away from us. But letting go of nostalgia and its associated emotions will help us to think critically. Are all these drawn-out evenings staring at paper really worth it, and if so, how?
For the first seventeen years of my life I read only what school demanded of me, and felt sincerely that it would be more enjoyable to eat a book than to open one. Then, one day, a browned and dogeared copy of Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love (1997) caught my eye, in the same way that something you pass every day can inexplicably gain new life and you see it as if for the very first time. I read it cover to cover almost in one sitting, and it ignited in me a burning passion for literature that has never dimmed.
I’ve always considered this a personally pivotal moment, in which I crossed a bridge out of childhood, exchanging juice boxes for coffee, Velcro for laces, and Saturday cartoons for stock market speculation. But was it because of the book itself, or was it just the timing? Could it be that I had suddenly matured, or rather, that I found doing something typically adult novel (no pun intended)? Or was it because I simply enjoyed the sittinginside-on-a-rainy-day feeling, which just so happened to have involved a book? Regardless, I liked it, and parallel to this, I somehow matured from a child to a mostly functioning adult. My question is, then: did literature save me? Can it save us?
To be clear, I don’t mean, can literature save us from drowning? No, it can’t. Instead, I mean to ask: can literature save us in the sense of enlightening us?
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Denne historien er fra April / May 2024-utgaven av Philosophy Now.
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The Two Dennises
Hannah Mortimer observes a close encounter of the same kind.
Heraclitus (c.500 BC)
Harry Keith lets flow a stream of ideas about permanence and change.
Does the Cosmos Have a Purpose?
Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention.
Is Driving Fossil-Fuelled Cars Immoral?
Rufus Duits asks when we can justify driving our carbon contributors.
Abelard & Carneades Yes & No
Frank Breslin says 'yes and no' to presenting both sides of an argument.
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray, now ninety-two years old, was, among many other things, one of the most impactful feminists of the 1970s liberation movements - before she was marginalised, then ostracised, from the francophone intellectual sphere.
Significance
Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.
The Present Is Not All There Is To Happiness
Rob Glacier says don’t just live in the now.
Philosophers Exploring The Good Life
Jim Mepham quests with philosophers to discover what makes a life good.