Last nght at the Wilson Trust Foundation, Professor Beryl Dunkelheit began their lecture on “Why We Read Great Books” with the a priori premise that we read them “to become a better person.”
“But look at me, look at my colleagues. Are we better people? I think not.”
QED.
But hold on. Who says we read books “to become a better person”? Is that way we read The Iliad? Sophocles? Rabelais? Boccaccio? King Lear? Macbeth? Machiavelli? Byron? Shelley? Wuthering Heights? Moby Dick? Joyce? Hemingway?
— Walter Carey
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Author: The Best American Poetry
