Monday, March 24, 2025
ESSAY - READING INTERESTING BOOKS
Earlier, I was reading one of my favorite books, The Art of Thinking (1928) by Abbé Ernest Dimnet. 
The Art of Thinking (1928)
by Abbé Ernest Dimnet
He told a story to illustrate this:
He met a young girl from a French farm family, who was excited at reading "The History of Rome" for the umpteenth time, comparing it, as a tale of adventure, to other, dry, factual books that were available to her.
I thought of my own bonding to poetry.
We moved to an old house in 1949, and there, on the bookshelves for many years of my youth, was a leather bound book of poetry.
One day, in my teens, the soft leather binding caused me to pick it up, and browse through it, in a typical bored-teenager fashion, rejecting poem after poem.
Suddenly I came upon one which excited my young, adventure-craving mind, molded by the tales of Robert Louis Stevenson.
Having read that poem, and having experienced an epiphany of sorts, I searched the book for others. There, hidden, among love poems (anathema to a teenage boy); and idyllic, again, to a teenage boy, laughable descriptions of nature, I found more high adventure. I read one after another of these stories in rhyme, presented in short form, more powerful for the intensity packed into the few carefully chosen words, and images created in my mind by the poets.
I was hooked. Lost that book for a few years, but recovered it recently, thanks to the efforts and keen eye of my sister.
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Labels: Abbé Ernest Dimnet, donovan baldwin, essay, History of Rome, poetry, the art of thinking
# posted by Donovan Baldwin @ 4:52 PM 
