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August 7, 2007 8:00 AM
A Time To Reclaim: Summer Reading
For some of us, particularly students and teachers, summer is a time to reclaim what we have not had during the year, and that can be a number of things. For many, it might simply mean picking up a book we have been longing to read but simply have not had the available time to do so. The traditions of saving those books for "summer reading" has translated into an industry of sorts. Barns and Noble or Borders has its select shelf of "reads" for summer.
This summer Mercersburg has offered The Kite-Runner as an option for the summer reading, and it is a terrific option at that. In fact, the novel is a novel about reclaiming one's past, in a sense, on a number of levels, and it is a redemption novel. Of course, we also had the arrival of the final installment of the Harry Potter books this summer to keep us abreast of the young wizard's doings. That book, too, is a book about reclamation of a sort. In fact, both books, I think I can say without ruining the plot of either, position the main character in contest with the self that requires, at key moments, a vast amount of self-sacrifice. Both are almost too profound for "summer reading."
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What is essential about summer reading, I suspect, is that it should be, for the reader, a different sort of read than what one does during the year, so that he or she truly feels as if something is being reclaimed, something that has not been available throughout the year, whether it is shear pleasure or some time to consider the profundities. The sense of "vacation" behind the season is part of the ethos of it, so, after all, it promises to deliver escape of a sort. The reading that occurs in it might, therefore, offer a sort of escape as a result; one would hope.
Sometimes the sight of fresh pages and the feel of a crisp spine are enough aesthetic bounty that a book can proffer to give us the escape we deserve. Sometimes we have to shift genres or start reading something much lighter to get that sense of difference. We do have a cliche we toss around about books and it is somewhat pejorative: "that would make a good summer read." It is for those books that do not quite have the weight of winter in them.
It really does not matter what one reads in the summer as long as one recognizes that he or she can take the season as an opportunity to reclaim something of himself or herself, and that reclamation might begin with reading. We do not have to travel far abroad to find the space to refigure ourselves, when a breezy read will do, nor do summer reads need to be "breezy." A sturdy tome can serve as well. It is not the book; it is the action. Summer reading allows one to reclaim what he or she has lost in the other seasons. What would be better still is if we all started taking up, with as much planning, list-making, and enthusiasm, fall reading and winter reading and spring reading.
Sometimes the sight of fresh pages and the feel of a crisp spine are enough aesthetic bounty that a book can proffer to give us the escape we deserve. Sometimes we have to shift genres or start reading something much lighter to get that sense of difference. We do have a cliche we toss around about books and it is somewhat pejorative: "that would make a good summer read." It is for those books that do not quite have the weight of winter in them.
It really does not matter what one reads in the summer as long as one recognizes that he or she can take the season as an opportunity to reclaim something of himself or herself, and that reclamation might begin with reading. We do not have to travel far abroad to find the space to refigure ourselves, when a breezy read will do, nor do summer reads need to be "breezy." A sturdy tome can serve as well. It is not the book; it is the action. Summer reading allows one to reclaim what he or she has lost in the other seasons. What would be better still is if we all started taking up, with as much planning, list-making, and enthusiasm, fall reading and winter reading and spring reading.
Posted by Matthew Kearney at August 7, 2007 8:00 AM
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