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'Big Read' road leads to healthy discussion |
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Thursday, 17 April 2008 |
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A Mammoth Times Editorial Questions raised in dialogue perhaps more important than answers
It should come as no surprise to learn this newspaper is fully supportive of the “Big Read.”
Since 2006, the National Endowment of the Arts has sponsored this annual event through libraries all across the nation.
The NEA offers a selection of titles, and this year Mono County has chosen Ray Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451. This is a title and author that are close to the heart of many Mammoth High School graduates who were able to meet the author during his visits to speak to the local students. This book has been a part of the school’s literature curriculum for years.
Libraries throughout Mono County are making copies of Fahrenheit 451 available in English and Spanish. They are also scheduling films, discussion groups and lectures throughout the month of May to enhance the experience.
The concept of the Big Read is not so much about the selected title, but about the role literature plays in the fabric of society.
The idea of the project isn’t just to refresh your memory about a book or to read a title you somehow missed in school. The real role of reading is the discussion and thinking that inevitably follow.
As Guy Montag finally understood, the questions reading raises are much more important to society than the lessons offered. The discussion of those questions can bring about understanding far deeper than even the most serious author might dream.
Reading is not passé in America today, but discussion of ideas has become threatened if not endangered. Everyone reads, whether it be off paper or on a digital screen.
Discussing ideas, however, is something rarer, and it is that discussion that powers the Big Read.
We have no shortage of talk in modern America — television and radio are full of voices espousing their views of everything from politics and economics to psychology and even auto repair — but discussion is different.
Readers take from a book or newspaper article different things. One person reads and sees only the surface of the content while another, perhaps because of background, senses more or less.
If they take that away separately the half-life of the work is incredibly short. If, however, they take the time to engage in discussion of that work, it gains a depth and perspective for both of them.
Discussions take time. They require engagement beyond YouTube or the Boob Tube. Bradbury’s censorship isn’t about totalitarian government. His chilling warning was about a readership too lazy, too intent on being entertained, to bother reading and discussing the ideas books contain.
Communities that participate in the Big Read will be richer for the experience.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Mammoth Times Editorial Board.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 24 April 2008 )
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