#739 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Wednesday August 30)
Good morning,
I recently finished watching the show Silo on Apple+. It’s a great concept. Some 10,000 people live in a silo that extends over a hundred stories below the surface. It is a complex creation that is a self-contained universe, existing much as a terrarium, where all the ingredients of society (farms, power sources, hospitals, etc.) are contained inside. The outside world is contaminated and unsafe (for reasons we aren’t told). The people in the Silo don’t know their history, why they’re there, what the catastrophe was, and what they can do to change their circumstances. Obviously, there is a lot of metaphor packed into this concept and the story is not without its twists. In some sense, there are echoes of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy in this story, as there is someone who thinks they can predict the future and prepare future generations for its eventual challenges. Results, of course, rarely resemble the objective.
I picked up the book upon which this series is based (it’s called Wool, which is an abbreviation and not the fabric). It’s a long book, but a surprisingly quick read. It feels a little like a young adult novel, heavy on plot, while lighter on character development. That’s okay, of course, as I sometimes think of myself as a young adult!
I read another similarly written book exploring life, its meaning, and its twists and turns. The Midnight Library contemplates how one life has many possible outcomes, based upon sometimes minute decisions. The heroine is provided the opportunity to live alternative lives predicated on different decisions she made in her life. Neither of these books is great literature, per se, but they are fun and thoughtful page turners. They are, in many ways, more instructive as to the human condition than many works of so-called adult literature.
YOUNG ADULTS AND READING
These two excellent books got me thinking: Why did we read as young adults and why should current young adults roll up on the couch and read a book? What is it that young people expect from literature?
I maintain that reading is the fourth leg of the foundation that imparts and fosters knowledge, creativity, personal growth, and self-awareness. The first three legs are the guidance of parents, the teachings of schools, and the daily social interactions with peers and adults. But our world view necessarily is limited to what is in “our world.” Reading allows us to go to different places, to go to different times, to explore the outer reaches of human understanding and to confront our inner-most ideas, fears, and aspirations.
Here are some of the reasons I think literature is important for kids:
Acceptance. Learning that others have the same anxieties and insecurities.
Facing and coping with loss. Bambi’s mother dies. Simba’s father dies. Catastrophe strikes and it’s going to be all right.
Mocking society and its absurdities. Laughing at all the silliness of the adult world. What else would explain Mad Magazine!
Conquering fear. Ogres, monsters, beasts, ghosts. In the end, the good guys survive a scare. This genre has a noble history with the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson and others.
Go strange places and different eras. Visit ancient Egypt, Victorian England, and anywhere you want to go.
Seeing how other people deal with problems. Science fiction and fantasy offer the author the opportunity to create a new world, in which problems similar to our own can be addressed in a different context.
Empathy. The opportunity to try on someone else’s situation and empathizing with—feeling for—them and the problems they face.
HIDING THIS FROM THE KIDS
I think the banning of books is abhorrent. It is stultifying and damaging. But if people choose to ban books for their children, so be it. Just don’t ban books and ideas from other children. As for the children of the book banners, some will continue on a narrow life and may well perpetrate the crime of restriction ideas on their children. But I believe many of them will grow up to understand what they have been denied and resent the limitations their parents placed on their learning, personal growth and empathy.
Have a great day,
Glenn