{"id":9472,"date":"2016-10-04T20:52:50","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T03:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=9472"},"modified":"2016-10-04T20:52:50","modified_gmt":"2016-10-05T03:52:50","slug":"conjuring-specters-how-to-talk-about-books-you-havent-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/conjuring-specters-how-to-talk-about-books-you-havent-read\/","title":{"rendered":"Conjuring Specters: How to Talk about Books You Haven’t Read"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Upper<\/a><\/p>\n

Our relation to books is a shadowy space haunted by the ghosts of memory, and the real value of books lies in their ability to conjure these specters\u2014xxi<\/em><\/p>\n

I must confess at the outset of this post that Bayard convicted me of the danger of becoming too immersed into a book, thus \u201cdistancing [oneself] from [our] personal universe\u201d (183). For example, years ago, I actually read cover to cover, page by page, Umberto Eco’s dreadful(ly fascinating) The Name of the Rose[1]<\/strong><\/a>[2]<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, the book which Bayard expressly encourages his reader to only learn about from listening to others\u2019 responses to it.<\/p>\n

502 pages absorbed in a different world! I was drawn into Baskerville\u2019s discovery of the mangled corpse among the fresh timothy hay in the horse stalls, the smell of fear and musty books in the labyrinthine library, and the youthful romance of the naive protagonist and the doomed novitiate. What I missed was my own response to Eco’s warning of external realities not aligning with our own presuppositions. If I had merely skimmed this book, perhaps I would have been in a better position to process and converse on the juxtaposition of laughter and dangerous religion, of wandering and light.<\/p>\n

To take a different approach, let me offer up Shusaku Endo’s literary masterpiece, Silence[3]<\/strong><\/a>[4]<\/strong><\/a><\/em>. Without having read a word of the actual book, I can commend it to you as a book not to be ignored. Endo, a late 20th-century Japanese Catholic writer, tells the tale of early Catholic missionaries to Japan, their initially warm reception in the Far Eastern country, and eventual martyrdom. While most Japanese today do not identify as Christians, Endo’s telling of this historical event is widely respected in his country. I share this with you, coupled with the confession that I have held the book in my hands, caressed it in anticipation of falling into the tale, and then returning it unopened to the library. But I know enough of the story to recommend it to you, as I have listened to at least two sources whom I respect. First, my undergraduate New Testament professor discovered the writings of Endo and incorporated them into class discussions (yes, twenty years ago). Second, my artist brother’s friend and fellow artist, Makoto Fujimura, has written a companion to Silence<\/em> (titled Beauty[5]<\/strong><\/a>[6]<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, which I haven’t read either); I\u2019ve skimmed his reviews and interviews on Endo’s book.<\/p>\n

As Bayard reminds us, what \u201cwe are able to say about our intimate relation with a book will have more force if we have not thought about it excessively. Instead, we need only let our unconscious express itself within us and give voice\u201d (164). All of this is to give evidence of the ability to skim, forget, or listen to others in order to talk about books I haven’t read, such as the one assigned to us this week, of which I spent about 30 minutes skimming, 30 minutes compiling notes, and scattered amounts of time totaling about an hour writing this response.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> FB+<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose<\/em>. 1st ed. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> HB++<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> End\u014d, Sh\u016bsaku, and William Johnston. Silence<\/em>. Tokyo: Sophia University in cooperation with the Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1969.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> UB+<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Fujimura, Makoto. Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering<\/em>. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2016.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our relation to books is a shadowy space haunted by the ghosts of memory, and the real value of books lies in their ability to conjure these specters\u2014xxi I must confess at the outset of this post that Bayard convicted me of the danger of becoming too immersed into a book, thus \u201cdistancing [oneself] from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[477,2,904,905,796],"class_list":["post-9472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bayard","tag-dminlgp","tag-eco","tag-endo","tag-lgp7","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}