Every school year we begin early on with a seminar on our summer reading. For example, this year we began by discussing Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe. While the Academy's summer reading program lends itself to being a compulsory program, where students are expected to read, the seminar discussions recreate, at times, something of the friendly banter of a book group. That is, meeting to discuss the book becomes the consummate pleasure of the project. Knowing that everyone in the school is discussing the same book, the same themes and issues is compelling, affirming and intriguing. It's as if the whole school is one behemoth book club for a day.

Book clubs are wonderful institutions. One gets the private pleasure of reading the book and then the pleasure of the social occasion of discussing it. People of all sorts come together to trade ideas on the given text. There may be disagreements or disputes, but there is mostly sharing of ideas and insights that lead to a bridging of gaps between otherwise isolated selves. The text becomes a common ground upon which we can meet to understand one another's predilections and personalities.

Mercersburg has a few book clubs of its own. Most notably, it has the Fifteen--the top fifteen English students in the senior class who meet regularly with the English Department members to discuss the current pick. We started this particular year with Henry James, then read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Soon we will prepare for a discussion of For Whom the Bell Tolls.

What works most poignantly about the Fifteen is that the students talk candidly on the same level as the faculty and vice versa; there is no hierarchy of ideas or voices. No one is more expert than anyone else. The authority over the text emerges from the collective effort of "the club's" discourse, and no single individual's ambition claims that authority.

We generally have a luscious dessert to go along with the discussion or sometimes a lunch. Food and talk are so primally connected in the human sphere, so it is only natural that some eating takes place during the discussion, harkening back to the 14th century when neighbors actually came by to "chew the fat," literally.

Nevertheless, ideas, often profound, are spawned at these meetings that can compel one to reconsider their place in the world quite thoroughly as any good read or discussion should compel one. I am ever surprised and enthralled by what other people say and how other people think; it amazes me at the various ways folk can approach the world and articulate their views of it. It forces me to consider my own ideas much more rigorously, which is always helpful in sorting through it all. Being thrown back on one's own resources by the substantive thoughts of others re-awakens the mind.

Clubs and activities abound here. That is one of the great riches and challenges of the school; how to fit it all in? By and large, however, everyone finds his or her niche and finds the clubs that satisfy the soul most. The book club, at any school, is a viable idea for both private and public pleasure, for the the cultivation of a voice and a critical mind, for the sustained habit of lifelong reading, and for all sorts of opening of doors into the minds of others.

Posted by Matthew Kearney at February 14, 2007 1:15 PM

Comments

TrackBack Link