“But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken” – T. S. Eliot, “Ash Wednesday”
In his poem “Ash Wednesday,” T. S. Eliot famously borrows the language of St. Paul in order to image the paradoxes of faith. “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light,” Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians. “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
Paul and Eliot remind us that time is precious, and as redeemed people, we should use time in a restorative and redemptive manner.
As the summer approaches with its travel plans and leisure activities, so, too, does the temptation to squander time, even innocently. It’s tempting, for example, to grab a beach read from the “new” shelf of the library or the airport bookstore. Merriam-Webster defines “beach read” as “a usually light work of escapist fiction” or “any enjoyable or accessible book considered suitable for reading while on vacation.” Beach reads typically sell well, whether in the mystery or romance genre. They’re often book club picks, at least for certain types of book clubs.
But “beach read” is a subjective term because what one reader may regard as a worthy work of contemporary literary fiction, another might regard as trite. Thus, it is difficult to speak about beach reads as a class. All the same, those who want to “redeem the time” ought to cultivate a general wariness towards beach reads and the mindset surrounding them.
The beach read mentality depends upon an incomplete vision of literature and its ends, unashamedly aiming at and accomplishing little more than entertainment. Even though the beach reader might recognize the instructional significance of literature for young children or of textbooks for the older student, he affirms by his preferences and actions that literature, at least in his own life, is principally an instrument for leisure and satisfaction.
But this is a reductive understanding. “All of us need rest and refreshment, but if literature and the arts are primarily a means to those ends, why not engage in more enjoyable ways of reaching the same goals?” scholars Susan V. Gallagher and Roger Lundin ask in “Literature Through the Eyes of Faith.” “Why should we read Dante and Dickinson, that is, when we can have a better time watching a soap opera, a game show, or a music video?”
Gallagher and Lundin’s answer is, of course, that we should read Dante because literature is for more than refreshment and entertainment. This is not the place to wade through the many definitions and discussions of literature’s purpose. Yet we must recognize at the very least that the written word is meant to be more than a harbinger of excitement and distraction – and more even than a device for teaching. If God spoke reality into existence by his word, reveals Himself in the words of Scripture, and even refers to his own Son as the Word, then words are more than mere toys or tools. Words bear a capacity to impart life and even divine truth.
The ancient poet Horace opined that poetry at its best will “instruct and delight.” In good literature, delight can never be quite divided from intellectual or moral instruction. This is because beauty can never be quite divided from truth and goodness.
Some Great Books may be lighter than others. “Little Women” or “The Scarlet Pimpernel” are surely easier to read and more suitable for poolside perusing than “Anna Karenina”; nonetheless, they are manifestly different from works marketed as “beach reads.”
Those who understand the life-giving capacity of words and the unity of beauty, truth, and goodness (known to the ancients and medievals as the “transcendental virtues”) ought to also comprehend that the beach read mentality, like other ways of thinking about literature and art that reduce them to entertainment, is a cheap one. The possibilities for summer reading (as for much of life) are much richer and more vibrant than our current culture would have us believe. The bestselling romance novel with a colorful cover pales in comparison to the dusty Jane Austen novel that no one ever checks out from the library.
There is an abundance in great literature and art that, though it may seem “inaccessible” to some, in fact allows us to experience something higher than ourselves and the satisfaction of our impulses. Our time to read is short. Why not seek to redeem it?
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This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal.
Image credit: Flickr-Pedro Ribeiro Simoes, CC BY 2.0
