Should You Read Just Any Old Thing?

As I slowly look through my e-books that have been in “review limbo,” I realize why I haven’t reviewed these books before: they’re dry. Not to say they’re not worth reading or reviewing, but they are rather dense and therefore somewhat hard to comment on coherently. These books are ancient literature, philosophy, or simply novels I read that didn’t resonate as powerfully as other books I was reading at the same time.

Yet while many of these books take a bit more digging to get to the heart of their topics, when you get to that heart you realize how relatable and relevant many of these writers were/are. I’m often surprised by reading (translated) Roman works, because they sound so “contemporary” and the issues they deal with are issues that we still deal with today.

Take the debate regarding the role of books and literacy. Classic literature, in particular, has been criticized for being inaccessible, too long, and generally outmoded. Why force people to read antiquated novels when they could read contemporary fiction so much faster? To answer the question of whether it's enough to read "just any old thing," let's turn to a specific old thing: The Letters of Pliny the Younger. Glancing over the quotations I’d highlighted in this book, I noticed a pattern that had to do with the quality of literature. 

“It is a pleasure to me to find that a taste for polite literature still exists, and that men of genius do come forward to make themselves known, notwithstanding the lazy attendance they got for their pains.”

Pliny covers a few different aspects about literary taste in this quotation. First, he’s happy that people still appreciate good literature—although that group of people may be small in comparison with the “lazy attendance” of other readers. Second, he’s happy that writers still commit themselves to producing good literature, whether anyone reads it or not. The very fact that these works exist gives them inherent value.

“To delight and to persuade requires time and a great command of language”

This quotation relates to writing, as well as reading. Literature is not just about telling stories: it’s about communicating with people throughout your community, beyond borders, and throughout history. Novelists never know how far their work will travel, nor how long their books will stand the test of time. Because of this, they should focus on refining their writing excellence: honing every word, painstakingly ensuring that they successfully relay their thoughts to as many people as possible.

“…in good compositions, as in everything else that is valuable, the more there is of them, the better…. Even in books a large volume carries a certain beauty and authority in its very size.”

Here Pliny addresses the common “it’s too long” complaint by pointing out the illogic of that argument. After all, if something is good, don’t we generally want more of it? Today, probably more than in Pliny’s day, we live in a culture of excess. Look at food commercials where the selling point is how many pounds of meat are on sandwiches, or how large a soda you can purchase per your dollar. Popular books, movies, and television are pushed to the max for commercial purposes—unnecessary prequels, sequels, spinoffs, and cookbooks ensue, and sell well because people love it.

If a cake is the most delicious cake you’ve ever had in the history of existence, then wouldn’t you be happy if it were a large cake? The same goes for literature. If a book is well written, it doesn’t matter how long it is.