I like pictorial books: graphic novels, et cetera. I agree with Alice Pleasance
Liddell: “What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?”
Recently I picked up a little book called “Philosophy: A Discovery in
Comics,” by a Dutchwoman named Margreet de Heer. It’s a nice mini-summary
of Western philosophy, done mostly through illustrated biographies of major
philosophers like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle up through Erasmus and
Spinoza.
She does a nice little summary of George Steiner which
makes me want to learn more about him. He’s a deeply intelligent man, a
polyglot who knows everything and has memorized everything, and who has made some
very intelligent pronouncements about the modern world.
Steiner says that all of us should have a suitcase packed at
all times. We need to be ready for the worst; we need to be ready to move
along. We need to acknowledge to ourselves that nothing lasts forever, and that
sometimes terrible things happen, and when they do, we have to get away, the
quicker the better.
He also speaks (very eloquently) about the need to memorize
things. Once you’ve memorized something, it can never be taken away from you. Who
cares if they burn the books? You have the books in your head.
Here’s Steiner himself talking about the importance of
memorization:
The world is a wonderful and perilous place. So it’s
probably a good idea to have a suitcase packed.
Because you never know.
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