Previously, Mark Nenadov, Michael Plato, Olga Lukmanova, Ian Clary, Vincent Cancilla, Heather Weir, and Bob Walton’s answers on the topic of literature have been featured. Here are Sheila Kurian’s answers.
1. Can you give a brief summary of where you live, your educational background, what you do for a living, what church you attend, and the religious tradition you stand in?
I am a native Torontonian with a master’s degree in Classics. Currently, I am a book-keeper part-time and pursuing a masters degree in religion at the UFT. I attend two churches: St. Paul’s Anglican on Bloor Street regularly and St. Thomas’ Syrian Orthodox Church monthly. First and foremost I am a Christian; my theology is most informed by the Orthodox church (I was raised Syrian Orthodox) but I love the evangelical practice of St. Paul’s – hence the two churches.
2. How has your early upbringing shaped your view and use of literature now?
Some of my earliest memories involve books; I remember being read to and learning to read. Every night, our family would gather at a fixed hour, read the Bible together and pray. My parents both love to read and took us to the library every Saturday morning from the time I was three. We had a wonderful librarian in our local library; when I had finished the ‘kid’ section, I asked her what I should read next. She took me to the classics and said that I should start from there; anything that I didn’t like, I should put back on the shelf and try again a year or two later as I probably wasn’t ready for it yet. This has saved many books for me e.g. I first tried Anne of Green Gables in grade 2, but didn’t like it. I followed our librarian’s advice and tried it again a year later and loved it.
I continue to read for pleasure – all types of books: ‘classics’, sci-fi, biographies, poetry, history. Books also provide a means of exploring other cultures, times, ideas. The only genre which I will not read is modern horror [I have read Dracula and Frankenstein] because I get nightmares.
3. Are there any people who, in your adult life, have encouraged you to encounter literature in a deeper or more passionate way. If so, who? (they can people you know personally or not)
C. S. Lewis has been a long time influence for my childhood and in my adult life. Thanks to his essay An Experiment in Criticism, for example, I had an early defence for rereading books. Also, because he and Tolkien read fairy tales and children’s stories, even as adults [I can't remember the essay which speaks of this - Tolkien wrote it' there is also something in Lewis' Fern Seeds and Elephants collection], I never had to go through a stage of being ashamed that I read the Narnia books and the Tolkien books every spring. My parents both continue to influence my reading habits; we recommend books to each other (one of the delights of growing up!). A classics professor, Hugh Parry, one of the gentlest and best-read people I know, encouraged all of his students to read broadly; he said that if we just stuck to primary and secondary texts we would shrink as persons. Really, all of my professors have had an impact, because each has introduced me to books and ideas which I had never encountered. Madeline L’Engle is another author who stretched my boundaries, particularly as a teen, introducing me to Elie Wiesel and poets like Herbert, Vaughan, and Donne. Then there are my friends. Both here in Toronto and friends from Chicago have always been great at sharing books and their responses to them. Whole vistas have opened up for me, particularly in Chicago, when my friends and I formed a reading circle. We met every Saturday night, rotating houses. We were not allowed to talk shop (all of us were in grad. school). After dinner, one of us would read aloud from a book which we had all chosen.
Good books were/are meant to be heard, not just read silently. This is especially true of the Bible [I love the collect which encourages us to hear the word, as well as read, mark, learn..."Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience, and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. Amen"]
There is so much more: book reviews in the Guardian, on NPR, and the CBC. The books on the Geller list and those which win the Booker Prize. Recommendations from book store clerks and fellow students. But I have to stop!
4. What authors/works would you re-read if you had a month-long sabbatical to dedicate to reading?
The Bible. The Iliad and Odyssey. The Oresteia. Elie Wiesel’s Messengers of God. The Hobbit. Books 2, 4, and 6 of the Aeneid. Sayer’s The Man who would be King. Lewis’ The Last Battle. Roberta Bondi’s To Pray and To Love. Milton’s Paradise Lost. Lewis’ The Great Divorce. Cavanaugh’s Being Consumed. Sermons by Andrew Lancelot. Aquinas’ Imitation of Christ. King Lear. St. John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul. Banville’s biography of Copernicus. And some PG Wodehouse or Gerald Durrell (probably My Family and Other Animals).
I usually have several books on the go as you might guess from the length of the list.
5. Who are your favorite authors or characters portrayed in literature? (if any of them have substantially changed you, list how briefly)
[No answer provided]
6. Should Christians read more literature? What are the benefits to that? What are some cautions you would share?
Yes, absolutely. All of us are shaped by books, directly or indirectly. Paul, for example, was shaped by Euripides and Plato; it is reflected in his writings. Luke by historians like Thucydides and Livy (see Luke’s lining up of his evidence and compare it to Thuc. Book 1 chapter 22, for example). Genres, ideas shape people – consciously or unconsciously. If you don’t know much about the schools of the Stoics and the Epicureans you will miss a lot of the humour in 1st Corinthians. If we don’t read, we won’t know what shaped the authors that we “have” to read and what is continuing to shape our culture even today – e.g. Hobbes or Locke or Descartes. I heard someone mangling Adam Smith (the ‘invisible hand’) the other night when attempting to justify his position on why the government should not impose regulations on banks (this was in the States).
Or look at the way people abuse poor Robert Frost’s phrase “good fences make good neighbours”. Knowing the context of these quotations helps us to true understanding; we may not agree, but at least we see the argument properly.
But also, and perhaps more importantly, God gave us imaginations; he gave us the ability to respond to beauty. Tragedy really can lift you out of yourself – think of the domestic tragedy of the Medea or the conflict between public and private in the Antigone. The Narnia books gave me an means to think about theology before I knew what the word meant. Fairy tales give us monsters and heroes. Myths have echoes of eternal story in them (think of the number of dying and resurrected gods there are in the Greek tales, for example; God was implanting his plan in all peoples so that when we were introduced to the Real God-Man, Jesus, who died and rose again, we would recognise him.). Biographies tell of challenges – of success and failures. They dare us to stretch beyond what we think our boundaries are. History – well, if we don’t know our history, we fail to understand the political, social, economic, and religious forces at work in our society.
The caution that I would share is that books cannot be read with impunity. They have impact. It is sometimes harder to detect the fallacies in current literature because we are so immersed in our own culture. So, first, temper your reading with ‘old books’ [a great essay on this topic is Lewis' "On Reading Old Books"]. Second, ask people for book recommendations. If you see a book mentioned in a book that you like, try it out, too. Third, if you don’t like it, it could be that you aren’t ready for the book or it could mean that the book isn’t right for you. Try it again after a year or two. You never know: you just might like it.
7. To what degree is reading communal for you? (ie. Are you more solitary? Do you share in any way with your friends? Are you in reading groups?)
I read every night and have since I first learned how to read; in that sense, I am a solitary reader. However, I loved the reading group that I was a part of in Chicago and would love to be part of such a group again, if possible. All of us are still in touch (we live all over the world) and share book recommendations and thoughts on books by e-mail and telephone. Also, I exchange books with friends and family.
8. What are some methods or principles you use to decide what you will and won’t read?
I won’t read horror (nightmares) and try to avoid ‘junk’ books. For example, I didn’t finish Dan Brown’s book because it was so very badly written. I generally only read fantasy that has been recommended by friends; I have several who really like the genre and get through a lot of it. Because there is so much bad fantasy out there, this saves me from weeding through it!
Because I am in school, much of my reading is related to course work, right now. Also because of school, my pleasure reading tends to be short stories or novels that I can put down (detective novels, old favourites from my childhood…) and pick up later. It is important to make time for ‘fun’ reading, too. Our brains need a break (or at least mine does!) from heavy reading. I read the comics every day (amazing social commentary and some interesting views of theology, too – try Pardon My Planet, for example) and also the newspaper (not light, per se, but it keeps me from being too clueless!).
9. What literary works or authors could be of the greatest value to the church if they were read more? Why?
This is a difficult one. Plato’s Republic (and more, if you can – e.g. The Symposium) for the influence of the Platonists/neoPlatonists upon early theological formation. St. Augustine’s Confessions and City of God, which also have wide reaching resonance in the church. Dante’s Inferno (reading all three would be ideal). Machiavelli’s The Prince to see and to understand some of what undergirds politics. Some Shakespeare – at least King Lear - or, better still, go see it performed. Shakespeare still shapes our language (“To be or not to be” – there’s an existential question for you!; “There are seven ages of man”; “This above all, to thine own self be true” [really?! And yet, I have seen this line cited in many high school yearbooks!]. Read fairy tales. Read myths. And then see the realness of the people whom God gave us to know in his Word. Read poetry – Donne, Vaughan, Wordsworth, T S Elliot, e e cummings, Bob Dylan… – poetry is a great vehicle for thinking with: it condenses in a line what would take pages in prose to express.
If you missed out on children’s lit when you were small, it is never too late to catch up. And if you didn’t, the classics are lovely reread as an adult. The Narnia books, the Tolkien books (Tolkien, if for nothing else but to set the bar for good fantasy so you recognise the bad stuff and keep your children from it too!), The Secret Garden, The Cricket in Times Square, The Swiss Family Robinson, Gulliver’s Travels (actually more suited and originally intended for adults), Kidnapped, A Wrinkle in Time, The Wizard of Earthsea,,,.
10. Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
There are at least 5 movies which are better than the books on which they are based (The Sound of Music, The Princess Bride, Sense and Sensibility, A Christmas Carol and one other, whose name escapes me). But in the majority of cases the books are so much better than the movie (Narnia movies, the Tolkien movies, Gone with the Wind – the book is excellent!!! but the movie fell short of Mitchell’s creation, A Room with a View, Pride and Prejudice, Mutiny on the Bounty, The English Patient, The Odyssey,…).
But here’s the thing: you can read a not so great book and if you see the movie, it just enhances the experience. If, however, you first see a movie and then read the book, you have been shaped by the director’s (and actors’ and editors’…) interpretation of the book and bring this to the book. I have seen this with my nieces and nephews, whose parents have taken them to see movies which are based on books before the kids have read the books. Please read the book first.
Finally,
check out this web-site. I am not advising you to read every book on it, but it makes for interesting reading.
Thanks to Keith for starting a friendly competition that gave me a good start towards this and then he let me win!