An intensely long digression.

C.S. Lewis, in his An Experiment in Criticism, divides the world into two types of people. "The Few" and "The Many." Good readers, and bad readers. Not--note--not people who read good books and people who read bad books; but into people who read both good and bad books poorly, and people who read good books well, and bad books not at all.

It is with some consternation that I must report that, unfortunately, I have misplaced said book sometime in the past few months, and was quite unable to find it within the 45-second perusal of my room which I like to call "looking for it." This is unfortunate because I wanted very much to use this book to make a point, and now I fear I have lost the point entirely, and the book besides; a shame because it was interesting.

My mother gave it to me; a very slim book it was, about a hundred pages long but with comfortably large type, no more than a pamphlet, white on the front, orange on the back. Paperback. More like a pamphlet. I have no idea how my mum picked it out, knew I would like it--literary criticism isn't one of my more well-known or well-exercised interests. But my mother always picks the right books, books that I want to read, no matter whether I realize I want to read them or not. She says she is something of a idiot savant in book-choosing, using mainly cover appearance to select the best ones. I think of it more like the French sense of the word savant; that her mother's knowledge of my tastes and interests and psychology is so thorough that she can easily and intuitively discern what I cannot even choose for myself.

It's sort of like clothes. I have no idea what looks good on me, and a color that I like to wear may be pronounced a disaster by my sister. But my mother tells me things like "You look good in grey," and, lo and behold, that grey shirt she fancies on me so much garners complements from every quarter.

I know my parents know things. I can't deny it. I'm not so much a teenager as all that.

But I digress. The point, the point, I know. It's here somewhere but without the text in front of me it is exceedingly difficult. In any case. Two sorts of readers.

Now normally my reading is the one thing I have no modesty about, and I would place myself firmly in the "good reader" category, but with Lewis one is not so sure. One comes out of his essay unsure about one's status as a reader; indeed, about everyone, except perhaps Lewis himself. "Very insightful and very annoying," one reviewer has said and with that I concur. I don't know if I meet his qualifications for good reader status. But there is at least one requirement in which I might get an A: the aforementioned re-reading.

I am a prodigious re-reader. Family will attest to my obsessive devotion to the books I know and love; the Harry Potter series, C.S. Lewis's Narnia, Sherlock Holmes. Not just the great stories, though, or the favorite books of my childhood. Everything from humorous essays to science books to parenting manuals have warranted a re-read. There's a certain something, I don't know, when a book clicks with you. One might make the analogy to human relations, to having "chemistry." Great books have chemistry with lots of people, but not all great books have chemistry with all people. For instance, I never clicked with Jane Austen, much as I could recognize her talent. Haven't a clue why. Lengthy sentences haven't deterred me in other cases. But some conjunction of things therein conspired to make us incompatible. Who knows why?

In any case, that doesn't mean that everything I enjoy I re-read. Some things, like most fanfiction or light short stories or pop psychology books, are meant to be read, and that is all. But really almost any book or story that has genuine merit and is worthwhile can be re-read, so I have found. A funny story will be amusing again in the re-reading. A poignant description will recall tears to your eyes easily, perhaps even with more ease than the first time. Even a surprise ending will still bring that little pang of shock to your heart, upon reading again.

That is the one thing people don't seem to understand, but it is true for me, so perhaps that particular peculiarity has less to do with Lewis's good readers and bad readers, and more to do with my eccentricities. A mystery story, for instance. It truly is no less good once I know the ending. In fact, it may be better in the re-reading, because I'm no longer racing through to discover, for instance, the identity of the murderer. The first time I read the Sherlock Holmes story, The Final Problem, I sobbed. Then I read the next story, chronologically, The Empty House, I think, and (spoiler ahead!) I rejoiced. The second time, reading of Holmes's untimely demise and subsequent "resurrection," I cried with equal emotion. My heart gave an equal pang of sympathy for dear, dear Watson as he grabs Holmes's arm with great astonishment and, upon finding it real and solid and alive, faints clean away.

Perhaps it is just the suspension of disbelief which one undertakes whenever one reads a book, but it takes nothing away from these books, for me, when I have read them before and thus know the plot. Indeed, it adds a good deal in some cases, especially with authors who have carefully built up foreshadow and such in anticipation of the climax. When one re-reads The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, for instance, discovering every accidental reincarnation of a character who does not make his appearance until book 4 is a pleasure that can only be indulged in the re-reading. These are books that demand to be re-read, that require it, for the full experience. Knowing the hows and whys and whats of how it all fits together do not detract at all from them.

Science is sort of like that, for me; and again I do not know whether it is a peculiarity or deficiency on my part or no. Understanding how something works, and why it is like that, don't somehow take away from its essence, any more than knowing your anger is irrational makes you behave rationally. (Certainly doesn't work for me.) The daisy in my garden is assembled of plant cells, which are passingly well understood, according to instructions laid out in its genetic code, which was obtained via the evolutionary process, which again we understand approximately. It's still a daisy. It still is beautiful. The love I feel for my siblings is biologically programmed into my brain via that same evolutionary process, by selfish genes which recognize (not literally, that's personification) that my siblings share 50% of my DNA, statistically. Knowing this does not lessen my love for them, or make it somehow less important or good, or reduce that indefinable essence.

Nothing worthwhile is so fragile. No book of any real merit is seriously worsened in the re-reading. No phenomenon to which we ascribe worth and meaning should lose meaning upon scrutiny.

Perhaps it is just me, though. I was, after all, always the sort of kid who liked to see how the magician did it better than the show itself. Doesn't that ruin it? my sister or dad would say. No, I would say, rather nonplussed. Magic is entertaining, I like it. Understanding, I far prefer.


* * *


I would leave it at that, except that I get the impression that people will be offended by my insinuation, real or perceived, that I am somehow nobler than they are because I prefer knowledge to mystery. That I, like Mr. Lewis, am dividing humanity into two groups, the more privileged of which I am a member of. This is, of course, not my belief at all. All people like beauty, love, and yes, even magic; and I am not asserting that I find no pleasure in the mystery of not knowing the end of a television show or a detective novel, or no pleasure in the peculiar type of mystery which comes from the people one loves...which one, of course, cannot know absolutely in all aspects, and thus are a constant source of surprise and wonder.

I am just saying...do not fear, so much, the horror that a scientific explanation will destroy the worth of things. The sunset is still beautiful, even now that we know it is not being carried by the sun god's golden chariot. There are valid things to fear about science. Its explanatory power is not one.