Just read a wonderful piece in Sunday's NYT, The Week in Review, "The Border is Always Open" by Hisham Mitar. Its focus is on the magic of reading. He says, "The secret motive behind every library is to stumble upon ourselves in the lives and lands and tongues of others." What happens? A distance is widened and then it is crossed. All great art is a glimpse across the limits of the self.
This piece spoke to me in so many ways, mainly in the way I have used books to give me access into another's world, and how important, how critical this is. He says literature is the greatest argument for the universalistic instinct, and that is why it is intransigent.
I agree, and also with the limitations of a presidency where doubt and contradiction are not tolerated, for what is life (and literature) if not a series of contradictions. Donald Trump is not only intolerant of complexity; he fears it. That is why he does not read, and why we must continue to read, so we can go to many far off places, ones Donald Trump could never go to with all his money, but limited imagination and intellectual acumen. I read; therefore I am!
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