[Vision2020] Their Souls Live on in the Cemetery of Books

[Ted Moffett]

Nick et. al.

What a marvelous commentary on the "soul" of books!  Thank you!  I am
reminded of Noam Chomsky's view that a great novel describing a human life
contains a more complete description of the reality of human experience than
any objectified scientific analysis, whether from neuroscience or
psychoanalysis... I am paraphrasing, but if I am lucky, without grave
inaccuracy.

Ted Moffett


On 11/27/06, nickgier at adelphia.net <nickgier at adelphia.net> wrote:

> Greetings:
>
> Taking a break from politics, I thought I would write on a very differrent
> topic this week.  This my radio commentary for Tuesday, about 8 AM and 9:30
> AM on KRFP 92.5 FM.
>
> Nick Gier
>
> THEIR SOULS LIVE ON IN THE CEMETERY OF BOOKS
>
> Readers who were entranced by Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of
> Solitude" and Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose," will love Carlos Ruiz
> Zafon's "The Shadow of the Wind."
>
> The book begins with the narrator Daniel being led by his father to the
> Cemetery of Forgotten Books.  The father explains: "Every book, every volume
> you see here, has a soul. The first time someone visits this place, he must
> choose a book and adopt it, making sure that it will never disappear, that
> it will always stay alive."
>
> My purpose here is not to review a book, but to explore the idea that
> books have souls by first reflecting on what it means to be a human
> soul.  The ancient words that have been translated as "soul" literally mean
> breath of life.  Adam became a living being when the divine breath entered
> into a body made of dust (Gen. 2.7). The Hebrew soul is not immortal;
> rather, it lives only as long as it has the divine breath.
>
> We still say that people are "good souls," which means that they lead a
> good life; or when we say a town has 600 souls, it means that it has 600
> living beings. Indeed, the small town of Anatone, Washington lists all the
> animals in its population.
>
> The Hebrews believed that animals were also divinely animated, and they
> thought their destinies are the same: "They all have the same breath. All go
> to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again" (Eccl.
> 3:19-20).
>
> The Apostle Paul continues the Hebrew tradition with the "dust men" in the
> image of the Old Adam, who will be made into new beings by Christ, the New
> Adam (1 Cor. 15: 45-50).  In the New Testament there is no natural
> immortality, the beginningless and endless soul of Plato or the Hindus, but
> only a "bestowed" immortality on a being that would otherwise return to the
> dust.
>
> Authors also take the dust of ink and paper and make books living
> beings.  As readers we have an obligation to keep them alive.  Just as other
> souls make us who we are, we also enrich the souls of books by pouring our
> own lives into the reading experience.  As the father in "The Shadow of the
> Wind" says: "Every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, [the book's]
> spirit grows and strengthens."
>
> Daniel's father speaks of author and reader souls merging in a great
> literary web of life, but he forgets one important element: all the
> characters authors have created. Many authors have discovered that once
> their characters are formed by a breath of inspiration, they take on a life
> of their own.
>
> As novelist John Fowles states: "The novelist is still God, since he
> creates.  What has changed is that we are no longer the gods of the
> Victorian image, omniscient and decreeing; but in the new theological image,
> with freedom our first principle, not authority."  This is the reason Fowles
> decided to write several endings for his free-willing characters in his
> novel "The French Lieutenant's Woman."
>
> The only immortality that ancient Hebrews had was living on in their
> descendents' memory, and that is why genealogies were so important for
> them.  This is also the reason for the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.  Here,
> as Daniel's father explains, "books that are lost in time live forever,
> waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands."
>
> When Daniel finally chooses his book, he says to himself: "I felt sure
> that 'The Shadow of the Wind' had been waiting for me there for years,
> probably before I was born." Later he discovers something very disturbing:
> someone has tried to destroy every other copy of it.
>
> When Unitarian Michael Servetus was burned at the stake in 1553 in
> Calvin's Geneva, copies of his book "The Errors of the Trinity" were hunted
> down and burned.  For centuries it was assumed that fanatics had succeeded
> in destroying all the copies.
>
> In their book "Out of the Flames," Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone tell the
> story of their successful search for the last remaining copy of this
> controversial work.  Everyone who loves books, and especially Unitarians
> around the world, are overjoyed that Servetus' courageous words have been
> preserved.
>
> In ancient times scripture and other important literary works were
> committed to memory.  Even today it is common to find illiterate Muslims who
> can recite the entire Koran from memory.  For thousands of years Indian
> gurus have passed on scripture to their students, who in turn become masters
> who pass it on to their disciples.
>
> Studies have shown that this is a much more accurate and secure way of
> passing on words than copying manuscripts.  The Indian ragas have been
> passed from generation to generation without any note being committed to
> paper and without any note being lost in the process. Taking a cue from
> "Fahrenheit 451," where people start memorizing books before the state burns
> them, we should all be taking courses in memorization techniques.
>
> Ever since I started my personal library when I was a teenager, I've never
> thrown away a book.  I have as much respect for them as I do every living
> being.  The one exception was a book I recently got in the mail from a
> conservative Christian organization.
>
> The book's premise was that all American Jews should return to Israel to
> prepare for the End of the World.  The implication that they would be
> destroyed if they did not turn to Christ was so vicious that I, after some
> hesitation (it was a book after all), tossed it into the garbage.
>
> Is this book and others filled with hate such as Mein Kampf in the
> Cemetery of Books?  My answer is "Yes," for the same reason that the company
> Alexa Internet searches the web and captures all sites for their internet
> cemetery at www.Archive.org.  One simply hopes that some books are never
> chosen, lose their breath of life, and die.
>
> Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31
> years.  For many other columns visit his website at www.NickGier.com.
>
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