Dog-Eared Pursuits

Anthony Esolen on the Importance of Not Reading

When I was a boy, if you read at age four, you were a genius, but there were things more important than reading. You could poke a stick in the sand of a ditch. You could crush a rock against the concrete to draw pictures. Recess was the heart of school, as play and not work is the heart of life. I’m a man now, surrounded by books, sentenced to sentences, yet the rebellious boy in me rises up now and then to whip them back to their dens. Why, the best Book I know is sweetest when seen and lived.

Why should that rebel read? What is the point?

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Anthony Esolen is a professor at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts in Warner, New Hampshire, and the author of many books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House). He and his wife Debra publish a web magazine, Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com), on poetry, hymnody, language, classic films, and music. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.

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