A Look at Bria Crawford's Latest Article

[Burris]

Having read and deconstructed a fair number of Kelly Crawford's articles, I thought it might be interesting to examine a blog post by her oldest daughter, Bria.

Before I continue in this exercise, however, I want to touch on my own background – especially in case Bria Crawford makes her way over here to check out what I've written.

Now, I've been a writer for well over ten years. I even have a BA in English..Some people may disagree with my content. They may even dislike my style. But no one, anywhere, could rightly accuse me of hating the discipline.

I love everything about writing. I read style-books not only for professional development but also for fun.

Reading and writing dominate my leisure time. Not surprisingly, then, I also love to teach other people about writing. (Tip: One key to writing well is to be an avid reader - and deep, if possible.)

It's in this spirit that I take a closer look at the first article I've ever read by Bria, who is still fairly young.

Through another thread, I came across a link (via Acheronbeach) to the third part in a series Bria has written on the importance of imagination.

The title: “Imagination is Dwindling.†(She certainly seems to have inherited Kelly's pessimism.)

Bria believes reading good books is an important part of maintaining a vital thought-life. Unfortunately, however, she also believes some kinds of television (as well as some corners of the internet) are in part responsible for this “dwindling†she mentions:

Television and the computer aren’t the only things that keep us from wholesome literature and imagining for ourselves.

That, there, is Bria's first sentence: A blunt, unproven assertion.

She seems to expect her readers to take it on faith that her claim is correct.

Her article is peppered with what I'll call rhetorical questions – because most of her “questions†are actually statements dressed up with a question mark. By posing them as questions rather than boldly asserting them, Bria is side-stepping the need to prove anything.

We can become avid readers, but are we reading the kind of books that actually cultivate knowledge? Are they wholesome, and do they ooze quality and wisdom? Or do they simply entertain us and just add fluff and nonsense to our mind?

I think it's important, before getting to the meat of this matter, to retool Bria's first paragraph: It needs to be rewritten in such a way that Bria will have to defend her assertions rather than hiding behind the old dodge, “I'm just asking questions.â€

Here's the reworked version: 'We can become avid readers, but that won't profit us much if we aren't reading books that contain wisdom. Our reading matter should be wholesome and in line with our basic beliefs, otherwise books are merely idle entertainment and a waste of personal time.'

Bria is wrong. - and her worst error is in restricting her reading list to books she already believes contain wisdom. Without first reading these books for herself, she is bound entirely by the reviews of other people – people whom she allows to determine what is and is not worth her own time.

That's not imaginative or sharp. It's not conducive to a dynamic thought-life when other people must first vet each book Bria reads. In limiting her reading to what she already considers wise, Bria misses out on a great deal of wisdom and on the world-widening effect of books that fall outside her comfort-zone.

The most astute readers can find wisdom pretty much anywhere. If Bria cannot do this, then she has yet to become a good reader.

Reading a book can be slightly compared to watching a movie. Does it just entertain us for a while? Or does it challenge our thinking?

In what ways would Bria compare reading a book to watching a movie? I'm genuinely curious.

When my husband watches a movie, he delights in finding mistakes. He watches all the “making of†features he can find for his favorite titles. In that way, he learns a lot more from movies than what one might get by passively staring at the screen.

Likewise, I often find myself imagining the writers as they collaborate, and I wonder what their vision was. One of my pleasures is in reading movie scripts and comparing them to the dialogue that eventually makes it on-screen.

My point is this: At least part of the value in any piece of media is whether or not the viewer is willing to actively engage, asking questions and maybe even gathering additional source material.

That's as true with books as with television.

There are people out there who read but don't retain. Their eyes play across the words on a page; they pass their time that way. When the book is closed, however, then it's also forgotten. It doesn't matter whether the book is 'good' or not.

Some might argue though “Can I not ever read for fun?†I don’t think it’s wrong to moderately incorporate some fiction, as long as it does not become the only standard for our reading habits, and as long as it is time worthy. I have made a habit of picking up what I dub as ‘pleasure books’ only at night after my full day of work and school and after reading more challenging, useful books.

I find it interesting how 'fiction' is ghettoized here, and reserved as a guilty pleasure to be had only if certain preconditions are met: It has to be incorporated into a reading plan dominated presumably by non-fiction (of a certain type), and it has to be “time worthy.†In other words, reading for pleasure is wrong, always, but if pleasure can be had through the course of being edified, then it's at least tolerable.

That's not wisdom. It's a knee-jerk refusal to go beyond one's comfort zone.

Bria is drawing a thick line between pleasure and knowledge where none exists. And in so doing, she has robbed herself of so many opportunities for growth.

The recommendation list she offers at the bottom of her post contains nothing but the most obvious and widely read items in the “dead white man†canon.

That's not to say those books are bad: I've read and enjoyed many of them – some, more than once. They mostly deserve to be as well-known as they are. But there's so much more out there, both fiction and non-fiction, and a dedicated reader could find value in nearly all of it.

Unfortunately Bria, though perhaps an avid reader, doesn't seem to be a very deep one. It's not because she's dim, either, but because she's afraid of what she might find if she expands her reading list.

I think she's afraid of the same thing that frightens so many other people in her communuty: She's worried that if she reads outside her comfort zone, she'll find the world is a lot different than the image of it carefully maintained in the fundie bubble.

[Effie]

Some random thoughts I had after reading her article is that books which are "entertaining" serve as a purpose for people who are not that willing to actually read. My youngest sibling doesn't like to read. Sometimes I have found some easier and more entertaining books with pictures in it. She has read them. Now she is 16 and she doesn't need books with pictures in them anymore.

Also, when learning a new language I have chosen easier and more entertaining books. For example, despite the fact that I have studied German for 5 years I have not read more advanced books like "Die Verwandlung" by Kafka. I have for example read a very readable, little book about a dog named Erika. I assume Bria doesn't learn other languages, but if she did, I doubt she would starts with the classics...

[Cran]

Thanks for defending fiction!

While I wouldn't limitmy reading to fiction-only, those books have taught me many different things:

- challenged me to get more information about things the book touched on, like historical background or foreign customs

- learned many things without explicitely studying them at other sources (the difference between a geisha and a prostitue in japanese society, for example)

- writing style

- languages (DVDs have proven to be even better here - movies with subtitles!)

- to take different viewpoints by living through the story of the main character, often alien to my own experience

- many more things than I can think of at the moment

And why, oh why is having fun a waste of time? You can never get all knowledge of the world stuffed into your head. I do not advocate learning nothing, on the contrary, but eery resonably grown-up person should lose this school-mindset: It is only learning if it is not entertaining!

[buddingmedievalist]

This makes me so sad. Especially the part about ghettoizing fiction. I mean, I'll be the first to admit that I don't have a whole lot of time for pleasure reading; most of what I do spend time with is for work or school. But I do make an effort at the end of the day to read at least a few pages of something not required that's just for fun. When I was in college, I used to feel bad about reading things that weren't the classics; the books I hid were the candy-colored fluffy "chick lit" novels that I didn't want other people to see because (I thought) it destroyed the image of me as a serious reader. Now, I could care less. I read a lot of really hard stuff, so occasional fluff gives my brain a break.

Poor Bria. She's missing out on so much, good and bad

[Witsec1]

Here's the reworked version: 'We can become avid readers, but that won't profit us much if we aren't reading books that contain wisdom. Our reading matter should be wholesome and in line with our basic beliefs, otherwise books are merely idle entertainment and a waste of personal time.'

Bria is wrong. - and her worst error is in restricting her reading list to books she already believes contain wisdom. Without first reading these books for herself, she is bound entirely by the reviews of other people – people whom she allows to determine what is and is not worth her own time.

That's not imaginative or sharp. It's not conducive to a dynamic thought-life when other people must first vet each book Bria reads. In limiting her reading to what she already considers wise, Bria misses out on a great deal of wisdom and on the world-widening effect of books that fall outside her comfort-zone.

The most astute readers can find wisdom pretty much anywhere. If Bria cannot do this, then she has yet to become a good reader.

Reminds me of the quote "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire". The concept of education Bria has been stuck with is very much the filling of a pail.

Also, this sentence just grates on me:

Reading a book can be slightly compared to watching a movie.

How can you "slightly" compare something? You can compare two things, and find a slight similarity.

[Witsec1]

One more thing: the owner of the blog on which Bria's article was posted is a former English teacher. Presumably, she could help Bria improve her writing if she took the time to mentor her. If Natalie Klewja really cared about Bria as a writer and a person, she would care enough to correct her from errors like the above.

[knitwit]

Obviously Bria hasn't spent any time in fandom, considering she's probably only allowed to visit a handful of websites on the internet, but if she thinks you can't deeply examine TV or movies or that they don't inspire creativity, then what the hell have I spent hours doing with friends? Fans are creative above all else: fanfic, fan art, fandom-based RPGs... And considering the character/plot/thematic analysis I've done with fandom friends, I'd say there was lots of fodder for edification there, particularly when it comes to writing fiction

Of course then she would be exposed to worldly content, so that's not likely to happen.

[koolmom]

Oddly enough, beneath all Bria's banality, I see a smart girl trying to come out...trouble is, she's been trained to be the total opposite thereof...

[debrand]

I hate the fundie put down of fiction or reading for pleasure.

The message that I got from my history classes was that history was a boring subject. Because I love to read, I discovered that history is not made up of dry facts and dates but a lot of juicy gossip. Reading a rather light romance novel on the middle ages led me to spend a lot of my adolescence looking up more factual books on the time period.

[Hane]

I hate the fundie put down of fiction or reading for pleasure.

The message that I got from my history classes was that history was a boring subject. Because I love to read, I discovered that history is not made up of dry facts and dates but a lot of juicy gossip. Reading a rather light romance novel on the middle ages led me to spend a lot of my adolescence looking up more factual books on the time period.

Bingo. The only history classes I enjoyed were ancient history classes, because we also learned about the mythology of the times we covered. I didn't develop an interest in other historical periods until I started reading historical novels and memoirs.

And thanks to Robert Poste's child for quoting this:

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."