Splash du Jour: Thursday

In high school I began to read for understanding. I read To Kill a Mockingbird and realized that a simple story about the lives of common folk could say more about injustice and intolerance than a thousand political speeches or a dozen newspaper reports. News gets old, truth does not.
History tells you about an event, fiction lets you live it. I read Catcher in the Rye and Crime and Punishment, and what I felt was that old sense of wonder and awe, and what I heard was the sweet voice at my bedside. I will eat a piece of the roof and you can eat the window. I was reading to learn why, to understand what it's like to be a human being. I didn't want to be informed but enlightened. I didn't want answers but questions. Didn't want clarity but mystery. The best stories express what is incomprehensible in life, what is invisible.

I read because I am curious about people and why they do what they do. And what will happen to them next. I read because reading great literature will make me a better person. That may be a purpose of any religion, and fiction is my religion. Its where I go to put my feet on higher ground. I read because I have
only this one brief life, but I want to live a thousand lives. And so I do. And at least one of those lives ends like this: Then all their sorrows were ended, and they lived together in great happiness. And then I can sleep.
-- John Dufresne --

Have a great Thursday!
And a great March, filled to the rafters, with reading.

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