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On Reading Well Finding the Good Life through Great Books Karen Swallow Prior Leland Ryken 9781587433962 Books

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On Reading Well Finding the Good Life through Great Books Karen Swallow Prior Leland Ryken 9781587433962 Books

For as long as I can remember, I have loved to read. My father was a pastor and my mother was a teacher, so there were always books around the house — preeminently the Bible, but also works of fiction and nonfiction. I never caught flak for reading as such, but my mom would sometimes look askance at me when I told her I was reading fiction.

Fiction is weird. Pablo Picasso wrote, “We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” Leland Ryken, my college English professor, said the same thing about fiction particularly. It is “the lie that tells the truth.” That’s what makes fiction weird. It describes the human condition without narrating a historical occurrence.

Some Christians trip over this paradox. I vividly remember a conversation with an older minister who insisted that Jesus’ parables weren’t made-up stories. They actually happened. If they were made up, he reasoned, then Jesus lied. Since Jesus didn’t lie, His parables took place in real life. The minister simply couldn’t see how a made-up story could tell the truth.

Other Christians trip over fiction’s literary form. They are so concerned for fiction to tell “The Truth” that they write and/or read novels that are thinly veiled Sunday school lessons. I think this is why so much “Christian fiction” is so badly reviewed. Literary art gets sacrificed on the altar of making a point.

On Reading Well by Karen Swallow Prior avoids both of these errors. It shows how the best fiction uses literary art to display virtue or its opposite. That’s not all fiction does, of course. It delights, intrigues, inspires, enrages, entertains, and a thousand other things, too. But good fiction preaches without being preachy. It moralizes without becoming moralistic. As Prior writes:

"Literature embodies virtue, first, by offering images of virtue in action and, second, by offering the reader vicarious practice in exercising virtue, which is not the same as actual practice, of course, but is nonetheless a practice by which habits of mind, ways of thinking and perceiving, accrue."

After an Introduction that explores the connection between literature and virtue, Prior divides her book into three parts grouped around a particular set of virtues, with each chapter pairing a particular virtue with a particular story.

Part One focuses on the cardinal virtues: prudence, temperance, justice and courage. The word cardinal derives from the Latin word for hinge. According to both classical philosophers and early Christian theologians, all other virtues pivot around these four. That’s why they’re cardinal. Prior explores these virtues through careful readings of The History of Tom Jones, a Founding by Henry Fielding (prudence); The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (temperance); A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (justice): and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (courage).

Part Two examines the theological virtues: faith, hope and love. “In contrast to the other virtues,” Prior writes, “these virtues can be attained only when granted to us by God through his supernatural grace.” That is why they’re theological. The books Prior studies in these chapters are Silence by Shusaku Endo (faith), The Road by Cormac McCarthy (hope), and The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy (love). For me, the chapters on faith and hope were the most challenging in the book, given the apostasy that lies at the heart of Endo’s tale and the hopelessness of McCarthy’s. Most challenging, but also most rewarding.

Finally, Part Three explores the heavenly virtues, which are the counterparts to the seven deadly sins. They are charity, temperance, chastity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility. Since Swallow discussed charity and temperance in preceding parts of the book, she skips them here, focusing on the last five. The works she discusses are Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (chastity); Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (diligence); Persuasion by Jane Austen; “The Tenth of December” by George Saunders; and two short stories by Flannery O’Connor, “Revelation” and “Everything That Rises Must Converge.”

I have nothing but praise for this book. It exemplifies how to read well, both in the sense of reading closely and of reading through the lens of moral analysis. Perhaps the highest praise I can give the book is that when I turned its last page, I wanted to read (or re-read) the works of fiction it studied.

The Puritan divine Richard Baxter wrote, “Good books are a very great mercy to the world.” They are, and Karen Swallow Prior’s book shows why. Fiction, at least the best of it, offers us a window onto life and into ourselves that can alter our perceptions and lead to metanoia, a change of mind, being and action. Given that we are not as virtuous as we could be, let alone as we should be, that change is necessary. And if “the lie that tells the truth” aids us in making that change, then let us read it well.


Tags : On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books [Karen Swallow Prior, Leland Ryken] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>★ </b><b> Publishers Weekly</i></b><b> starred review<BR>A Best Book of 2018 in Religion, </b><b> Publishers Weekly</i></b><BR><BR>Reading great literature well has the power to cultivate virtue. Great literature increases knowledge of and desire for the good life by showing readers what virtue looks like and where vice leads. It is not just what</i> one reads but how</i> one reads that cultivates virtue. Reading good literature well requires one to practice numerous virtues,Karen Swallow Prior, Leland Ryken,On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books,Brazos Press,1587433966,Books and reading - Religious aspects,Books and reading;Religious aspects;Christianity.,Christianity and literature,Christianity and literature.,Christians - Books and reading,Christians;Books and reading.,Virtues in literature,BOOKS AND READING,CHRISTIAN LIFE,CHRISTIANITY,General Adult,InspirationalDevotional,LITERARY CRITICISM Books & Reading,Literary CriticismBooks & Reading,Non-Fiction,RELIGION Christian Life General,RELIGION Christian Living General,RELIGION Christianity Literature & the Arts,RELIGIOUS,ReligionChristian Living - General,ReligionEthics,United States,virtues; literature; reading; classic books; great books; good life; classic writing; flourishing; ethics; prudence; temperance; courage; justice; faith; hope; love; chastity; diligence; patience; kindness; humility; Henry Fielding; F. Scott Fitzgerald; Mark Twain; Charles Dickens; Shusaku Endo; Cormac McCarthy; Leo Tolstoy; Edith Wharton; John Bunyan; Jane Austen; George Saunders; Flannery O’Connor; Great Gatsby; Huckleberry Finn; Tale of Two Cities; Pilgrim's Progress; Everything That Rises Must Converge; History of Tom Jones,virtues;literature;reading;classic books;great books;good life;classic writing;flourishing;ethics;prudence;temperance;courage;justice;faith;hope;love;chastity;diligence;patience;kindness;humility;Henry Fielding;F. Scott Fitzgerald;Mark Twain;Charles Dickens;Shusaku Endo;Cormac McCarthy;Leo Tolstoy;Edith Wharton;John Bunyan;Jane Austen;George Saunders;Flannery O'Connor;Great Gatsby;Huckleberry Finn;Tale of Two Cities;Pilgrim's Progress;Everything That Rises Must Converge;History of Tom Jones,LITERARY CRITICISM Books & Reading,Literary CriticismBooks & Reading,RELIGION Christian Life General,RELIGION Christian Living General,RELIGION Christianity Literature & the Arts,ReligionChristian Living - General

On Reading Well Finding the Good Life through Great Books Karen Swallow Prior Leland Ryken 9781587433962 Books Reviews

Don't allow yourself to make another reading list or another trip to the bookstore without having read, On Reading Well. This is not your average survey of literature. Chapter after chapter, Prior teachers her readers how to pursue the virtuous life through good books. You will be reintroduced to old books you thought you knew and new(er) books that you will want to soon discover. The writing is superb, the analysis instructive, and the readers are guided down the difficult road of character formation. Purchase this book, grab a cup of coffee, and read into the night (preferably with a dog beneath your feet).
Karen Swallow Prior is one of the preeminent thinkers and writers of our time. Her wit, wisdom, and insight always make for a good read. In her third book, Prior chooses 12 literature classics (including The Great Gatsby, Pilgrim’s Progress, and A Tale of Two Cities) and mines them for the virtues that they embody. Swallow Prior has an amazing ability to pull deep truths out of a text and then offer them back to her readers as invitations to grow. In chapter five, which explores faith via the novel Silence by Shusaku Endo, she writes, “But the purpose in reading this novel—or any novel—is not to find definite answers about the characters. It is rather to ask definitive questions about ourselves.” Like all of Karen’s work, On Reading Well is a rich gift and needs to be savored.
Karen Prior’s On Reading Well is a love story. It is not only the story of her love of reading good literature, but it is also her love of virtue – rooted in her Christian faith – and how one trait of good literature is its enhancement of virtue. Prior calls her first book (Booked Literature in the Soul of Me) a love story – but I believe this one is, too.

Before I get too far in, let me say, I love a good book about books. And this one esteems books and reading – first by acknowledging that the act of reading literature is virtuous, but then by showing us how examining great works of literature teach us how to live a more virtuous life.

There has been a fair amount of research that shows us that readers learn empathy from what they read. Reading makes us better human beings. It makes us more humane. And that is much of what Prior is laying out for us in On Reading Well. “Just as water, over a long period of time, reshapes the land through which it runs, so too we are formed by the habit of reading good books well.”

In On Reading Well, Prior pairs a work of literary fiction with a virtue – cardinal, theological and heavenly – in each chapter to illustrate how a good reading of fiction calls the reader to a more noble sensibility. She demonstrates how the literary text invites the reader to not just a richer understanding but a practical application of morality.

While Prior is quick to assert on social media that the books within On Reading Well are not a suggested reading list, I do think that she is subtly making a suggestion that there is a standard for good literature – perhaps it is that which espouses virtue. In a world of relativism, I for one, enjoy a good yardstick.

The best summary I can give of what On Reading Well is to me comes in Prior’s own words in her chapter on diligence “bringing spiritual truth down to earthly level, not simply to leave it there but to lift the reader toward the spiritual truth.”

May your experience with On Reading Well encourage your literary habits and lift you to higher grounds.
For as long as I can remember, I have loved to read. My father was a pastor and my mother was a teacher, so there were always books around the house — preeminently the Bible, but also works of fiction and nonfiction. I never caught flak for reading as such, but my mom would sometimes look askance at me when I told her I was reading fiction.

Fiction is weird. Pablo Picasso wrote, “We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” Leland Ryken, my college English professor, said the same thing about fiction particularly. It is “the lie that tells the truth.” That’s what makes fiction weird. It describes the human condition without narrating a historical occurrence.

Some Christians trip over this paradox. I vividly remember a conversation with an older minister who insisted that Jesus’ parables weren’t made-up stories. They actually happened. If they were made up, he reasoned, then Jesus lied. Since Jesus didn’t lie, His parables took place in real life. The minister simply couldn’t see how a made-up story could tell the truth.

Other Christians trip over fiction’s literary form. They are so concerned for fiction to tell “The Truth” that they write and/or read novels that are thinly veiled Sunday school lessons. I think this is why so much “Christian fiction” is so badly reviewed. Literary art gets sacrificed on the altar of making a point.

On Reading Well by Karen Swallow Prior avoids both of these errors. It shows how the best fiction uses literary art to display virtue or its opposite. That’s not all fiction does, of course. It delights, intrigues, inspires, enrages, entertains, and a thousand other things, too. But good fiction preaches without being preachy. It moralizes without becoming moralistic. As Prior writes

"Literature embodies virtue, first, by offering images of virtue in action and, second, by offering the reader vicarious practice in exercising virtue, which is not the same as actual practice, of course, but is nonetheless a practice by which habits of mind, ways of thinking and perceiving, accrue."

After an Introduction that explores the connection between literature and virtue, Prior divides her book into three parts grouped around a particular set of virtues, with each chapter pairing a particular virtue with a particular story.

Part One focuses on the cardinal virtues prudence, temperance, justice and courage. The word cardinal derives from the Latin word for hinge. According to both classical philosophers and early Christian theologians, all other virtues pivot around these four. That’s why they’re cardinal. Prior explores these virtues through careful readings of The History of Tom Jones, a Founding by Henry Fielding (prudence); The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (temperance); A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (justice) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (courage).

Part Two examines the theological virtues faith, hope and love. “In contrast to the other virtues,” Prior writes, “these virtues can be attained only when granted to us by God through his supernatural grace.” That is why they’re theological. The books Prior studies in these chapters are Silence by Shusaku Endo (faith), The Road by Cormac McCarthy (hope), and The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy (love). For me, the chapters on faith and hope were the most challenging in the book, given the apostasy that lies at the heart of Endo’s tale and the hopelessness of McCarthy’s. Most challenging, but also most rewarding.

Finally, Part Three explores the heavenly virtues, which are the counterparts to the seven deadly sins. They are charity, temperance, chastity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility. Since Swallow discussed charity and temperance in preceding parts of the book, she skips them here, focusing on the last five. The works she discusses are Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (chastity); Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (diligence); Persuasion by Jane Austen; “The Tenth of December” by George Saunders; and two short stories by Flannery O’Connor, “Revelation” and “Everything That Rises Must Converge.”

I have nothing but praise for this book. It exemplifies how to read well, both in the sense of reading closely and of reading through the lens of moral analysis. Perhaps the highest praise I can give the book is that when I turned its last page, I wanted to read (or re-read) the works of fiction it studied.

The Puritan divine Richard Baxter wrote, “Good books are a very great mercy to the world.” They are, and Karen Swallow Prior’s book shows why. Fiction, at least the best of it, offers us a window onto life and into ourselves that can alter our perceptions and lead to metanoia, a change of mind, being and action. Given that we are not as virtuous as we could be, let alone as we should be, that change is necessary. And if “the lie that tells the truth” aids us in making that change, then let us read it well.