Of the Making of Many Books: Reading as Journey Not Destination

A rule of reading that I have often observed and proclaimed is that one will always buy more books than one can read. Lately, I have had an even higher awareness of the disparity between the books I own, the books I keep buying, and the books I have actually read. Often, I wish I could be locked away in some dark dungeon or marooned on some forgotten island with an inexhaustible supply of resources and the world's largest library. However, whenever I am lost in one of these fantasies, the words of Solomon come sharply into focus: "of making many books, there is no end (Ecclesiastes 12:12)."

The truth is none of us will be able to read every book we want to before we die. Such a point was brilliantly established in a recent article entitled "The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going to Miss Almost Everything." While thinking over this article, a deeper question has been forming in my mind. Why would we want to read everything in existence? Holmes touches on this question near the end when she writes:

Imagine if you'd seen everything good, or if you knew about everything good. Imagine if you really got to all the recordings and books and movies you're "supposed to see." Imagine you got through everybody's list, until everything you hadn't read didn't really need reading. That would imply that all the cultural value the world has managed to produce since a glob of primordial ooze first picked up a violin is so tiny and insignificant that a single human being can gobble all of it in one lifetime. That would make us failures, I think.

Minus the reference to macroevolution, I think Holmes has a point. If my desire for cultural engagement through reading stems from a desire for conquest, then if I could achieve such a goal what does that say about the amount of literature that the human race has produced? Or, conversely, if I am able to accomplish this feat given the vast quantity that exists, what does that say about me? The urge to read everything ever undermines our own finitude. And why would we have it any other way?

The failure to accept that there is no way to possibly plumb the depths of every book I need or want to read makes reading a chore. Combined with the lamentable temptation of comparison, such an activity turns into nothing short of misery. In essence, reading becomes a kind of "Keeping up with the Joneses" of the intellectual sort.

Thus, books become expendables. They are a means to an end when viewed in this way. Therefore, what is really cherished is not the books themselves but the knowledge or the appearance of knowledge they provide. I say this as confession, not as judgment to others.

When we realize that the purpose of books is for our delight and growth (something that is ongoing and continual, never accomplished), then we can escape the vanity of such book mastery. We read to be conquered by God's truth contained in literature not to conquer it, for all truth is God's truth and we never really can master it anyway.

In short, the task of reading should be approached as a journey and not a destination. Enjoy it, friends.