To Read & To Write

“Ignorance is a treasure of infinite price that most men squander, when they should cherish its least fragments; some ruin it by educating themselves, others, unable so much as to conceive of making use of it, let it waste away. Quite on the contrary, we should search for it assiduously in what we think we know best. Leaf through a dictionary or try to make one, and you will find that every word covers and masks a well so bottomless that the questions you toss into it arouse no more than an echo.” Paul Valery’s essay, “Sea Shells”, which, in its Beacon Press Edition, is put beautifully within a red covered and gold titled illustrated book, is, quite simply, a masterpiece of thought. It makes sense that this book would not be classified under philosophical works, but rather a form of (literary) criticism and theory. In it, Valery thinks about seashells. His goal is to write down his thoughts and observations of and about seashells without using any pure framework. Even so, this...

The Hobbit - first of all - is a children's story about journeying. It's tone is playful even throughout the perhaps psychological and physical representations of the trauma of war (this was written between WWI and WWII) . There are huge spiders, evil trolls, and goblin battles, to name a few. These encounters that the hobbit (Bilbo Baggins), the dwarfs and elves have make them a team with the goal to retrieve the treasure that was wrongfully taken away from them (specifically from the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield) by yet another (recurring character in fantasy works) dragon, this one named Smaug. Gandalf the wizard acts as their guardian and teacher, offering kind words, advice, and support, the whole way, that is, the journey from the nice and homely place of Bag End to the dragon's lair at The Lonely Mountain. Bilbo Baggins is a naive jack-of-all-trades, even an odd-ball, and a partaker in pleasurable activities and hobbies, before he is practically pushed out of his co...