Why Read? [Hardcover]

Mark Edmundson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 26, 2004

In this important book reconceiving the value and promise of reading, acclaimed author Edmundson dramatizes what the recent identity crisis of the humanities has effectively obscured: that reading can change your life for the better.

Mark Edmundson's Harper's Magazine article "On the Uses of the Liberal Arts" is reported to be the most photocopied essay on college campuses over the last five years. Ruminating on his essay and the intense reaction to it, Edmundson exposes universities' ever-growing consumerism at the expense of a challenging, life-altering liberal arts education.

Edmundson encourages educators to teach students to read in a way that can change their lives for the better, rather than just training and entertaining. He argues that questions about the uses of literature-what would it mean to live out of this book, to see it as a guide to life-are the central questions to ask in a literary education. Right now they are being ignored, even shunned. And if religion continues to lose its hold on consequential parts of society, what can take its place in guiding souls? Great writing, Edmundson argues. At once controversial and inspiring, this is a groundbreaking book written with the elegance and power to change the way we teach and read.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Extending the argument of his tome Literature Against Philosophy: Plato to Derrida, Edmundson laments the state of liberal arts teaching—and, despite his protestations to the contrary, effectively caricatures critical theory as the soulless antithesis to his own humanistic pedagogical ideals. While a stylish, erudite piece of rhetoric, Edmundson’s book is dated, rooted as it is in the author’s Harper’s article of 1997 and in the culture wars of that decade. Edmundson, a professor of English at the University of Virginia, claims he is not "antitheory," but a humanist who believes a liberal arts education ought to expand minds rather than shut them down. For him, critical theory comes "between" the reader and the power of great books, distracting students from the big questions concerning life and how best to live it—questions central to a democracy. As an alternative approach, Edmundson permits students to identify with characters in a naïve manner currently out of favor in the academy and highlights the author’s voice (a technique he calls "ventriloquism"). Edmundson gives examples of how he teaches classics from Wordsworth to Orwell and takes positions on canonicity, multiculturalism and pop culture. Yet for all its learning and elegance, Edmundson’s challenge to teachers might have done more to rejuvenate or deepen the tired debate in which it engages had its observations extended beyond his own classroom.
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From Booklist

Reading literature nurtures our intelligence, our imagination, and our very soul. So believes Edmundson, a professor at the University of Viriginia, as so many great thinkers have believed over the centuries, writers Edmundson quotes with passion and expertise as he places literature at the very heart of a liberal-arts education, which he fears is becoming an endangered tradition. An eloquent advocate, Edmundson continues the invaluable refresher course on the significance of the humanities that he's been so ably conducting in Harper's magazine and in his previous book, Teacher (2002). Here he objects to the commercialization of higher education as students are recast as consumers and instruction is reduced to job training. Edmundson feels that students deserve, and need, more. He avers, "The purpose of a liberal arts education is to give people an enhanced opportunity to decide how they should live their lives" and that literature is "the major cultural source of vital options." Edmundson's many-faceted argument is forthright, rigorous, and inspiring as he convincingly links literature with hope and humanism with democracy. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; First Edition edition (August 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582344256
• ISBN-13: 978-1582344256
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,001,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why Read A Must Read, September 12, 2004

By 

Michael Pollan (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why Read? (Hardcover)

Edmundson has written the most provocative essay on the "crisis in the humanities" since Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. Unlike that book, however, Why Read? is itself eminently readable-- in fact a great pleasure from first page to last. Teachers in particular will find Edmundson's diagnosis and prescriptions bracing; he reminds us what got us into books in the first place, and why reading great works is indispensable to living the good life. Whether you agree with him or not, Edmundson's swift, lively polemic is already ingiting a debate we badly need to have.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Jeffersonian in the English Department, January 18, 2005

By 

Scott Gunem (Eau Claire, Wisconsin USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why Read? (Hardcover)

Mark Edmundson's book will make you wish that you had studied English at the University of Virginia and that you had been fortunate enough to have been in one of Prof. Edmundson's classes. (I did not have this good fortune.) Edmundson's passion for life and learning, which no doubt makes him an outstanding professor, also makes this book such a pleasure to read.

Edmundson's argument in support of the examined life is all the more compelling because it is so democratic. Edumundson believes that the life of the mind is available to all, not just to a privileged elite. Thomas Jefferson would be proud of Mark Edmundson and glad to have him on the faculty of his university.

But you're already an avid reader? You read and you know why you read. Do you really need a book entitled "Why Read?" I think so. Edmundson's argument is really much broader than the title would seem to indicate, and he will also renew your interest in reading and reading widely.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Difficult for average reader? Maybe that's the point., June 9, 2005

By 

ra2sky "ra2sky" (the left coast) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Why Read? (Hardcover)

This is a wise, short, and difficult book. For example, he includes a fascinating discussion using religion as a jumping-off point for resolving post-modernism's overly relativistic thinking. Edmundson focuses on deep questions for readers - what does your reaction to a book say about you? Why do you like a character and how does he/she reflect you?

I did find large portions of this book inaccessible--I haven't read Derrida, I am not particularly well versed in Shakespeare. I suppose I read mainly for pleasure and only partly for deep personal reflection. Edmundson would probably say--and rightly so--that this is because I am certainly a participatant/victim of the consumerism of the liberal arts education! And maybe that is one of his most important points. In any case, this was a stimulating read but it may make some readers feel intellectually inadequate.