When has a book inspired you to action?
I love the scene at the beginning of Dead Poets Society when Mr. Keating (played by Robin Williams) tells his English class to rip out the introduction to their poetry anthology, which is nothing more than a rubric for evaluating poetry:聽
鈥淓xcrement. That's what I think of Mr. J. Evans Pritchard.聽 We're not laying pipe, we're talking about poetry.聽 I mean, how can you describe poetry like American Bandstand? I like Byron, I give him a 42, but I can't dance to it.聽 Now I want you to rip out that page. Go on, rip out the entire page. You heard me, rip it out. Rip it out!鈥�
Amazingly, this sort of thing i.e., evaluating literature, is not just a Hollywood device inserted into the script to help develop a character.聽 It does exist.聽 In fact, I found a similar pipe-laying methodology in an introduction to a book on my own shelf.聽聽 The volume entitled Novels and Novelists: A Guide to the World of Fiction edited by Martin Seymour-Smith, rates the novels of the world鈥檚 great books based on four criteria e.g., 鈥�Readability,鈥� 鈥淐haracterization,鈥� 鈥淧lot,鈥� and 鈥淟iterary Merit.鈥澛� A book can earn up to five stars in each of the four categories.聽 For example, Dostoyevsky鈥檚 "The Brother鈥檚 Karamozov" scores perfect fives in all four categories, while Truman Capote鈥檚 "Breakfast At Tiffany鈥檚" scores three, one, four, and two respectively.聽 (I guess old Martin Seymour-Smith saw right through that Holly Golightly.)
I can鈥檛 imagine taking this sort of thing too seriously, unless of course a few more categories were added, like 鈥淐ost,鈥� 鈥淟aughs,鈥� 鈥淢enu,鈥� 鈥淪uspended Disbelief,鈥� 鈥淚nspiration.鈥澛� Now the former category, in my opinion, is the only true measure of any piece of literature.聽 That is the ultimate question; did the work inspire you to act?
My favorite author of all-time, Nicolai Gogol, was reputed to have died of a broken heart because his novels had failed to change the world.聽 Imagine that?聽 ("Dead Souls," by the way, scored fives in all four of Martin Seymour-Smith鈥檚 categories.)
In any case, I rummaged through my own cluttered melon, trying to think of books that had inspired me to get off my duff and do something. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" came immediately to mind.聽 I was so moved by Robert Pirsig鈥檚 encouraging words toward the mechanically disinclined that I grabbed a screwdriver and a monkey wrench 鈥� make that two monkey wrenches 鈥� and quickly and easily fixed the leaky faucet in my bathroom.聽 Took all the washer-less parts off, found the problem (a misalignment of a thingamabob), and just like that, it was fixed.聽 I was so full of confidence that I went on to repair the broken knob on the washing machine (epoxy) and the loose handle on the backdoor (Phillips screwdriver).
There were countless other books that motivated me, too鈥�.
While reading Thoreau鈥檚 鈥淭he Maine Woods,鈥� I packed my backpack, called a friend, and together we hiked two hundred miles along the Appalachian Trail through the New Hampshire and Maine woods.聽 After reading Kalle Lasn鈥檚 "Culture Jam," I wrote a 100,000-word novel with an anti-commercialism theme.聽 Carlo Levi鈥檚 "Christ Stopped at Eboli" motivated me to update my passport and travel to Italy.
Heck, my whole life has been book-inspired. Yeah, definitely: Rip it out!
Richard Horan is an award-winning author who lives and writes in Central New York.聽 His forthcoming novel, 鈥淪EEDS: One Man鈥檚 Journey to Find America鈥檚 Literary Trees,鈥� is due out in 2010.
