We’ve talked about literature this week—what’s so great about books and why we read them. “But,” you may wonder, “why do we have to read all these old books?”
Franz Kafka gives an answer: “You spend too much time on ephemeras. The majority of modern books are merely wavering reflections of the present. They disappear very quickly. You should read more old books. The classics. Goethe. What is merely new is the most transitory of all things. It is beautiful today, and tomorrow merely ludicrous.”
Most new books are a bit like fashion—they may look good for a season, but they ultimately come and go with the times. But for a few innovations, they are of little enduring value or significance.
Yet, note that Kafka doesn’t just say we should read old books, but that we should read the classics. After all, every old book was a new book at some time or another. What we’re really after is not so much the old books, but the best books. As Thoreau observed, “For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man?” And the surest way to know which books are truly the best is to sift the ones that have lasted the ages from those that, as Kafka says, “disappear very quickly.”
So, why do we read all these old books at CCA? Because they contain the noblest thoughts of man; that is, not simply because they are the oldest, but because they are the best books.
Have a wonderful day.
