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I'm thoroughly enjoying "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi. In it, she quotes a sentence from Nabokov—"curiosity is insubordination in its purest form." I love this. Curiosity is why I read and write. Curiosity is what compels me to track how meat winds up between the two halves of a bun, and how potatoes have co-evolved with human beings. Curiosity is why I want to read about genetic engineering and the workings of a seed. Why not? And if this is insubordination, well, that’s all the more reason to question like crazy.
Nafisi also writes about how novels are inherently anti-totalitarian because they encourage readers to practice empathy. A good novel will evoke empathy by inviting a reader into another's skin, and a compassionate reader will generally not become a fascist.
This gives me such pride and hope. These are the best reasons I can think of to read and write fiction.
As will be gathered
from these notes of mine,
I am the sort of person
who approves
of what others abhor
and detests
the things they like.
—Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book
circa 1000 AD
Clearly,
if Sei Shonagon had had access
to the Internet,
she would have had a weblog
instead of a Pillowbook.
—Ruth Ozeki, Weblog
circa 2000 AD
It starts with the earth. How can it not? Imagine the planet like a split
peach, whose pit forms the core, whose flesh its mantle, and whose fuzzy skin
its crust - no, that doesn't do justice to the crust, which is, after all, where
all of life takes place.
©© Ruth Ozeki 2003 under the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License