Thursday, November 8, 2007
Why our book is good for you
Posted by Zach in News

Justin asked me to write a little about our book Beowulf: Grendel the Ghastly, Book One. I told him “absolutely not.” Then we fought. Now Justin is in the Hospital, and I’m writing this out of sympathy.

Hopefully, in the next few post, I can shed light on a few of the book’s finer points.

I’m going to start with the first and best purpose of the book. Namely, it’s meant to be read. This seems obvious, but it is really cooler than you might think. We live in a technologically saturated environment that champions obsolescence and disposable information. The only thing more foreign in our media eco-system than a book, is a book made to last. Such books may be contrary to the spirit of the age, but they are crucial for human beings that attempt to live together in society.

It is culturally important when a new definition for a word is espoused. For example, “tolerance.” The word used to mean that one disagreed with a person, but chose to exist in the same society. It presupposed a baseline disagreement. Now, of course, to disagree is to be “intolerant.” Whether or not this is a good or bad shift is irrelevant. The point is that the meaning has changed. Such a change signals something significant in our cultural mindset. Similarly, the definition of the word “community” is mutating. In 1998 at Calvin College, Neil Postman gave a lecture about Technology and Society. He noted that we now use community to refer to a group of people with similar interests: Online Community, Gaming Community, Art Community, Academic Community. In times past, community referred to people who didn’t have the same interests, but who accommodated differences for the sake of harmony. Even though the definition for community has changed, the need for community has not. The internet does more than provide fast access to information. In Neil Postman’s phrase, we’ve struck a Faustian Bargain. The internet provides a means of communication that demands very little from us. There is a diminishment of co-presence in online banking, shopping, working, and schooling. There is also a consequent diminishment in face to face co-present interaction–what we used to call community. Used without scruples the internet mutates our mind into something that needs constant stimulation and into something that has very little room for self-reflection. Unfortunately, technophile kids are very adept at pursuing their own inclinations, but are not likely to accommodate others. They’ve skipped the whole important process of socialization, and we cringe when we see them treat people as mere carbon based banner advertisements–things that distract them while they seek to get what they want.

For parents and educators who want to combat such excess, we provide–you guessed it. A book. Reading forces the reader to absorb information analytically and not impressionistically (like film). Babies that grow up on Sesame Street or other filmic media tend to have a hard time in first grade. They’re not used to thinking in the rational way written sentences demand. For these poor 6-year-olds, reading isn’t just a new skill, it’s an entirely contrary way to think. At any rate, the benefits of reading make us pleased to offer a book. But it’s not just any book. For people that enjoy co-presence, we present a book that’s made to be read to other people. It’s meant to be read aloud.

Kids can read this book to themselves, and there’s value in that. But parents who like to read to their children or siblings who like to read to each other are going to benefit from such an ear-friendly text. Beowulf: Grendel the Ghastly possesses a text that honors our linguistic heritage.

In the Discarded Image, C.S. Lewis writes, “Nothing about a literature can be more essential than the language it uses. A language has its own personality; implies an outlook, reveals a mental activity, and has a resonance, not quite the same as those of any other. Not only the vocabulary –heaven can never mean quite the same as ciel–but the very shape of the syntax is sui generis [a thing of itself, unique in its characteristics]. Hence, in the Germanic countries, including England, the debt of the medieval (and modern) literatures to their barbarian origin is all-pervasive … Those who ignore the relation of English to Anglo-Saxon as a ‘merely philological fact’ irrelevant to the literature betray a shocking insensibility to the very mode in which literature exists.”

Our adaptation incorporates poetic elements like kennings and alliteration. It also weaves in Anglo-Saxon root words whenever feasible. The result is sentences like these that fall pleasantly on the ear: “To heighten his name, he set about to build a broad, bright feast-hall in Denmark. There, he swore to reward his loyal warriors with wealth.” Because some of the names and places are challenging to pronounce, we’ve included a pronunciation guide. For those parents who want a book to read to their kids, we’ve got one.

Why is it important to read to children? For the reasons you already know. It helps them develop pathways to higher literacy, imparts to them an appreciation of literature, increases their ability to concentrate, and lengthens their attention span. All great stuff. But it also demands time in a way that kids appreciate. For those who want to stop multi-tasking and commit some time to their kids, reading out loud is a rewarding past-time. It’s hard to do in between commercials or while you’re on the phone. Reading to another person is a much needed anachronism. It’s from another era and is as low-tech as you can get, but it’s still a very beautifully human activity. In a society that plugs children into television sets, there is nothing so refreshing as the co-present verbal interaction between a parent and child. I’m going to borrow another sentence from Mr. Postman. He says, “No matter what new media come into our lives, language will remain our most indispensable media.” So get a book (ours), and honor the legacy of our language and our cultural heritage.

Of all the things a book aspires to be, ours most aspires to be read. If you read it I think you’ll benefit from literacy’s inherent benefits and a few other things besides. Some of those other things I’ll talk about in a future post.

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