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In Praise of the Page
We've all heard plenty about new technology and how it will change our lives forever. But many of us still value an old technology, the book. A well-loved book can be "a significant event in the history of your reading, and your reading... should be an essential segment of your character and your life," writes William H. Gass, director of the International Writers Center at Washington University in St. Louis. The books you choose to read can reveal something of your character, of course. And if you were allowed to take only one book with you as you entered the twenty-first century, that choice might reveal something about your priorities as well. That's why we liked the question that the editors of the Hungry Mind Review put to twenty writers: If you could take only one book written in the twentieth century into the next century, which book would you choose?
So, to mark the new millennium, we asked faculty and staff on campus to tell us which book written in the twentieth century they'd most like to take with them into the next century. Here are some of their responses.
Tuesdays with Morrie by
Mitch Albom
Tuesdays is life. A young man reconnects with his college mentor, who
is dying from ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), and they talk about life's greatest
lesson. It reads like a semester in college with each chapter touching
on many of life's topics: The World, Regrets, Feeling Sorry for Yourself,
Death, Family, Emotions, Aging, Love, Marriage, Culture, Forgiveness,
The Perfect Day, and Goodbye. The quote "People die, Relationships don't"
has stuck with me. The book is a great reminder of how short and special
life is, and the time and energy that is put into relationships is what
makes my world go 'round.
Larry Bassow, University Housing and Food Service
2001: A Space Odyssey by
Arthur C. Clarke
I think this book is the Origin of Species for the next century. What
is now only science fiction may one day become reality, and if so I'd
like to vote for this to be the reality. Written in the '60s, this book
projects for time ever after the idea that our human bodies are only one
step on the way to the ultimate evolution. A future where only our minds
matter, that's what every woman, and most men probably, would call perfection.
Amanda Brown, Chemistry Pale
Fire by
Vladimir Nabokov
The zany format of the book (a fake commentary of a fake poem by a fake
author) runs cover for the author to expound in his trademark dazzling
prose on lots of stuff-the existence of God, for example. It is truly
a twentieth-century book, especially in its whimsical postmodern format.
It is a book of many delights, from sham word derivations, through graceful
phrase piroettes, to baroque-vaulted plottery.
John T. Clark, English
The Wind in the Willows by
Kenneth Grahame
(preferably an early edition or a reprint with the Arthur Rackham illustrations)
On the surface it is an utterly delightful animal story, but there is
a strong critique of the environmental and social consequences of industrialism
and an inherent, nondidactic plea for conservation of natural and cultural
resources. By creating animal characters that readers of all ages can
identify with, Grahame makes his message strike home.
Jim Dwyer, Meriam Library
Guns, Germs, and Steel by
Jared Diamond
This book is important because it provides a nonscientific audience an
excellent perspective on the history of humankind, and explains why some
civilizations and ethnic groups did so much better than others in terms
of world dominance. It completely discounts the "western bias" that we
were/are superior, and points out we were just plain lucky!
James W. "Jim" Jessee, Provost's Office
In Search of Meaning by Victor
Frank
lFrankl deals with the problem of unspeakable evil and suggests how the
strength of the mind can be used to overcome seemingly insurmountable
odds. Both depressing and exhilarating, this book challenges the reader
to live a life of meaning and significance.
Madeline M. Keaveney, Communication Arts and Sciences
Yertle, the Turtle by Dr. Seuss
If there is to be only one book from the twentieth century, it should
be accessible to the young readers of the future, have a good message,
and be humorous.
Skip Lees, Accounting and MIS
The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats by
W.B. Yeats
Not only is Yeats generally seen as the greatest and most influential
English-language poet of the twentieth century, his work captures and
carries forth into the future the ongoing struggle between the classical
and romantic urges that have served as intellectual poles in the vacillating
thought of the last 500 years or so. It also provides a way of looking
at history that should be especially potent in the year 2000, when, in
Yeats' words, we are in the process of encountering (without recognizing
it) a "Great Rough Beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born."
Ernst Schoen-Ren, English
The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things by George Kubler.
This book was printed from 1962 to 1971. I read it in college, and it was instrumental in my concept of how time affects history and vice versa. Needless to say, it changed my point of view as to past and future. Since my history has included the history of art, and now specifically the history of fine art print, it helps me balance interpretive material for exhibitions.
Catherine Sullivan, Janet Turner Print Collection & Gallery.
A Book of Five Rings
by Miyamoto Musashi
(Victor Harris translation, 1974) While the book was written in the seventeenth
century, English translations weren't available until the mid-twentieth,
which qualifies it in my mind as a twentieth-century book. The book is
a very short essay on strategy. It is about how to be. It takes as its
central example how to be a great sword-fighter; however, its essential
lessons are how to be purposefully great at anything.
Chuck Worth, Institutional Research
Also Named . . .
The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
by W.B. Yeats
Steve McAleer, KCHO Radio
Lonesome Dove by
Larry McMurtry
Jack Rawlins, English
Macho Sluts by
Pat Califia
Ian Barnard, English
Siddhartha by
Hermann Hesse
Wendi Beane, Financial Aid Office
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