reading down

From,

The Closing of the American Book
By ANDREW SOLOMON

I've hung this up outside the English faculty staffroom ... interesting stuff.

There is a basic social divide between those for whom life is an accrual off resh experience and knowledge, and those for whom maturity is a process of mental atrophy. The shift toward the latter category is frightening.

Reading is not an active expression like writing, but it is not a passive experience either. It requires effort, concentration, attention. In exchange, it offers the stimulus to and the fruit of thought and feeling. Kafka said, "A book must be an ice ax to break the seas frozen inside oursoul."