The Power[ful] Paper

How do I even begin to criticize a paper written by the professor? That would be like walking on thin ice....I truly want to do well in this class and not fall through into the freezing water of a "C" on my transcript. Yikes! But as I read the essay, typically looking for things I could disagree with, I found that my points of rebuttal were assuaged as I read more and more. Powers, you covered it all! But I suppose I'd just like to muse on the topic of reading, as prompted by this essay.

So, Powers obviously thinks that reading is important, particularly in a time when the act of reading is declining in the US, and when multi-ethnic culture must be understood through its literature, though this not being the only way. But I still want to go back to that question of reading and its value...why is it important? I guess when I ask the question, Im not implying that we should perpetuate illiteracy, but I am questioning why Powers wrote a whole essay on why understanding other cultures through reading is so important. I would like to ask why we truly cant understand them through other means. Why through their literature and not through their music or visual art....or even knowing them and interacting with them personally. Do we think reading other cultures is so important because we are English professors and students? Would the art major or international business major or music major agree that we reach other cultures through literature primarily? I think maybe not. And I also wonder about reading being a construct of the upper class, the educated class, the intellectual class. Once again, when I read my words, I feel like Im advocating for illiteracy, but really I just want to understand what reading is, what is its essence, why does it exist...(I might be spacing out a bit seeing that its past my bedtime) but can an individual understand and become enlightened by multi-ethnic culture without reading it? I understand that in today's society, it is only obvious that literacy means power; we can go places and be who we want to be when we can read and write, yes, I know this, but can we have this mobility through other means as well, like I stated previously with other disiplines?

Oooo, I wanted to comment on something else mentioned in the essay. Powers writes, "Readers of Toni Morrison in Beijing, Schenectady, Caracas, San Antonio, Fresno, and the Bronx belong to one another in a particular and important way, a cultural communion they share with one another that they don’t share with the neighbor in the next apartment or across the back fence, however much they may share a life in other respects." I was intrigued by this quote because I dont often experience this connection with anyone, though I am an English major and read at least five or six novels a year. At least. And I believe they are good ones. I dont believe I have the kind of experience Powers is referring to because I seriously do not have book discussions with anyone outside of class. Maybe I will tell a friend about the plot of the current book Im reading or even ask a foreigner I know if he or she has read a book Ive read, possibly making that connection Powers talks about, but it never goes beyond these surface literary interactions. I think Im to blame but so are my other literary-minded friends. Why dont we want to talk about literature? Is it just for the classroom? Frankly, I think this is true for me sometimes. Sometimes Im afraid Ill seem too scholarly if I talk about what Im reading, even if its with a friend who read the same book. I wonder why this is? Youd think Id be proud of my education, but Im even more self-conscious of looking condescending and pretensious to the people I encounter daily, some of them students. I wonder if this is just my problem, or others can relate...