Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Why All the Books?

Hey, ya'll. I made it. I'm in McAllen. It has not been an easy journey, but I'm seeing progress. The van with the furniture arrived last Thursday and unloaded. I did not think I had that many books, but they're in the apartment now (some still i the boxes). Becky offered her opinion that I didn't need that many books and I would never read them. She's right. Most of them have been available to be for 60 or 70 years and I haven't read them; what makes me think I'll read them now?
ooooo
I can't argue with her that this amount of reading is unlikely;however, I continue to desire to be well-read and the books are the way to accomplish that fiction. Before I began the move I started The Gathering Storm , the first of Winston Churchill's books on the Second World War. It is a large book, but I am enormously intrigued by this great polotician and statesman's observation of this most important event of the 20th Century. 

The 20th Century is my century. It is history that I was alive for. I really love history, but this history occurred in my lifetime. It shaped my childhood and laid the basis for whatever happened to me later. The literature of the the 20th Century tells me who I am and what I am about. The fiction tells me what the ideas were that saw me grow up. The poetry lures me to flights of fancy. I may never read the books, but, at least, I know where to find them. In them I can rehearse my life and times and find meaning. The 20th Century is not a foreign concept. I understand it's language and it errors and I can reflect on it successes and remember it's joys.