What is Stephen Harper Reading?

Inscription:

To Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
A history of reading, a history of being,
From a Canadian writer (and reader),
With best wishes,
Yann Martel

Letter:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0A2

Dear Mr. Harper,

I have only now and then sent you non-fiction, but Alberto Manguel’s A History of Reading is so perfectly suited for our sort-of dialogue that I’ve chosen it for this week. It’s an engagingly erudite and cosmopolitan work that effortlessly whizzes through history and over borders, as if planet Earth were a book and Manguel had carefully read it through, noting every reference historical, literary, religious, philosophical, physiological, archaeological, sociological, biographical, commercial, geographic, technical, personal, and anecdotal that had to do with reading. As it turns out, reading is everything. Not because everyone is a reader of books. That is not the case. Rather, because the world, and everything in it, is indeed a book of sorts. Manguel quotes Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass:

In every object, mountain, tree, and star—in every birth
          and life,
As part of each—evolv’d from each—meaning, behind
          the ostent,
A mystic cipher waits infolded.

(Good stuff, Whitman. He’s a thrilling poet, one whose poetry quickens the reader’s sense for life.) The world, like a book, demands elucidation. So an archaeologist reads a fossil the way a reader reads a detective novel, wondering What happened here? So a lover reads the face of his or her beloved the way a reader reads a romance, finding comfort and security there. So a politician reads a poll the way a believer reads scripture, asking What is my fate? And just as it’s a pity when a reader finds it not his or her worth to finish one book, and then another, and then another, and so on, until that reader becomes, ipso facto, a non-reader, so it’s a pity when a man, woman or child turns from the world, feeling it not worth the read. In both books and world there is mystery, a “cipher…infolded,” and what a joy it is to bathe, to swim, nearly to drown in that mystery. Among the many fine qualities of Manguel’s book is this one, that by dint of the abundance of curious and interesting facts, it jubilantly makes the case that we are a curious and interesting species.

Unlike a novel, which is like a long thread that must remain taut if it is good and so requires on the part of the reader an attention that is regular, if not constant, A History of Reading is composed of many short, colourful threads and benefits from stint reading. Manguel’s style is leisurely and elegant and it links with no apparent strain its many elements. Despite its breadth, A History of Reading remains a personal work, not only because Manguel’s charming, urbane  I voice regularly slips in to share an experience or anecdote from his long and satisfying life as a reader, but because it really is a personal work. Note the article in the title; it’s A History, not The History of Reading. With this choice, Manguel is merely reflecting one of the delightful powers of a reader: to select and interpret as he or she wishes. Manguel’s history of reading might be very different from yours or mine. His is rich, varied, joyful. What would yours be like?

I do believe that my next package to you, book and letter, will be my last.

Yours truly,

Yann Martel

encl: one inscribed trade paperback

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