Are You What You See?
Two or three days ago, an LJ friend posted a link to a photo file of the most beautiful libraries of the world. I followed the link, and was blown away by the majestic architecture, the artwork and the really -yummy- wood trim and furnishings. I passed the URL on to friends via email. One of my email friends is also a LJ friend, so the next thing I knew kmkibble75 had posted the library photo link at his blog. You really should go see these pictures!
While the link was ka-binging and ka-bonging its way around the net and then back into LJ, my thoughts were doing their own ka-bings and ka-bongs. Most of the first photos at that site are of European libraries in buildings that look like they were palaces for royalty. Many of them are open to the general public, not just for touristy-viewing but as just plain libraries. I'm guessing that most LJ bloggers are from the U.S., and that anyone reading this who isn't generally doesn't go to the palace down at the corner to check out books for a term paper or to research Aunt Suzie Q's geneaology for her. What would it be like to use a library like one of these on a regular basis?
Back in the mid-70's Eerdmans published the first edition of "C. S. Lewis: Images of His World". I was still in the process of buying anything by Tolkien, Lewis, or Williams that wasn't nailed down by a $100 + price tag, so naturally I bought it. At first, I was almost sorry I did. Along with photos of family and friends, Gilbert had dozens of pictures of The Bird and Baby (where The Inklings met), Oxford, Magdalen college, Cambridge, Addison's Walk and shots of various views Lewis, Tolkien and others would have seen when they were out hiking. For a while, I was kind of crazy-jealous. Really irrational. I went around grouching to myself that no wonder Tolkien could write about such a wondrous secondary world, when he had the choicest elements of the "real world" all around him as inspiration. I got over itin the author jealousy sense, but I haven't found it so easy in the Sherry-stuck-in-Delaware sense. ;-)
A couple of months ago, Demaris and I were hanging out, and reminiscing about what used to be the classic Sunday afternoon ride with the whole family packed into the family car. (No iPods, laptops, handheld computer games, or DVD players in the back seat. Depending on the decade, the family might have a radio but reception while driving in the country was spotty at best.)
We kids played "I spy" games, and drew, or played checkers, or scuffled when we got restless. We also looked at the scenery just for something to do.
As Demaris and I compared notes about our Sunday family outings, nearly all our experiences lined up until we got to scenery. Demaris was raised in Florida, and she told me how she and her sister complained that they saw no point in continuing down some straight old road when they could already see that the only thing up ahead would be more palmettos like the hundreds they had already passed. Well, that gave me a bit of c/u/l/t/u/r/e/ driving scenery shock, so I had to return the favor. I described how we usually drove along wildly curving, rising and falling country roads in Pennsylvania. Because of the curves and the large numbers of trees, we often couldn't guess what we would see around the next turn or over the next hill. It could be farmland, or more trees. We might pass the occasional car but we were as likely to pass an Amish horse and buggy.
Anyway, I invite you all to play a little game with me. Most of you have heard the scientific debate about which has the greatest effect on the development of the human personality--and sometimes on our physiology. Are we influenced mostly by Nature (genes, etc) or by Nurture (virtually everything else, including all aspects of our native culture & how we're raised).
Suppose, just for the heck of it, how you might be different right now if everything else were the same in your life up until you were 18-20 except... (You're 10? Go to bed before your parents catch you! It's a school night!)
How would you be different right now if everything else had been the same in your life up until you were 18-20,
--except all the buildings resembled palatial European libraries.
--except your society dictated that all buildings be constructed of identical prefabricated units.
--except you had never seen a city or else had never seen anything else except a city--even in photographs, tv or films.
---
Or, try this. What would you be like, what would your life be like --assuming your family & friends, everything else remained the same-- but going for a walk meant crossing deer parks, strolling along footpaths once frequented by famous men of letters, walking past ancient buildings and the remnants of millenia old stoneworks, hearing the screech of a kite and the cry of a wolf rather than a factory whistle or a siren or the roar of a motorcycle?
And if you got thirsty, you had become used to looking about you for a stream, or a farmer's well, the swaying sign outside a pub, the tower of a church or castle just peeking over the tree tops, the waterhole in use for over a thousand years, or the arrow pointing to the public water fountain inside an exquisite work of art that happens to be a library?
The previous paragraphs are my j/e/a/l/o/u/s/ best guesses about what Lewis saw while hiking or just walking, from his youth, while a college don, until near the end of his life. See Lewis' beautiful but fictional description of a similar experience in "That Hideous Strength: Sale of College Property", Section 3. Don't you so want the place--but not the plot--to be true?
Aren't we sometimes what we see?
SherryT
While the link was ka-binging and ka-bonging its way around the net and then back into LJ, my thoughts were doing their own ka-bings and ka-bongs. Most of the first photos at that site are of European libraries in buildings that look like they were palaces for royalty. Many of them are open to the general public, not just for touristy-viewing but as just plain libraries. I'm guessing that most LJ bloggers are from the U.S., and that anyone reading this who isn't generally doesn't go to the palace down at the corner to check out books for a term paper or to research Aunt Suzie Q's geneaology for her. What would it be like to use a library like one of these on a regular basis?
Back in the mid-70's Eerdmans published the first edition of "C. S. Lewis: Images of His World". I was still in the process of buying anything by Tolkien, Lewis, or Williams that wasn't nailed down by a $100 + price tag, so naturally I bought it. At first, I was almost sorry I did. Along with photos of family and friends, Gilbert had dozens of pictures of The Bird and Baby (where The Inklings met), Oxford, Magdalen college, Cambridge, Addison's Walk and shots of various views Lewis, Tolkien and others would have seen when they were out hiking. For a while, I was kind of crazy-jealous. Really irrational. I went around grouching to myself that no wonder Tolkien could write about such a wondrous secondary world, when he had the choicest elements of the "real world" all around him as inspiration. I got over itin the author jealousy sense, but I haven't found it so easy in the Sherry-stuck-in-Delaware sense. ;-)
A couple of months ago, Demaris and I were hanging out, and reminiscing about what used to be the classic Sunday afternoon ride with the whole family packed into the family car. (No iPods, laptops, handheld computer games, or DVD players in the back seat. Depending on the decade, the family might have a radio but reception while driving in the country was spotty at best.)
We kids played "I spy" games, and drew, or played checkers, or scuffled when we got restless. We also looked at the scenery just for something to do.
As Demaris and I compared notes about our Sunday family outings, nearly all our experiences lined up until we got to scenery. Demaris was raised in Florida, and she told me how she and her sister complained that they saw no point in continuing down some straight old road when they could already see that the only thing up ahead would be more palmettos like the hundreds they had already passed. Well, that gave me a bit of c/u/l/t/u/r/e/ driving scenery shock, so I had to return the favor. I described how we usually drove along wildly curving, rising and falling country roads in Pennsylvania. Because of the curves and the large numbers of trees, we often couldn't guess what we would see around the next turn or over the next hill. It could be farmland, or more trees. We might pass the occasional car but we were as likely to pass an Amish horse and buggy.
Anyway, I invite you all to play a little game with me. Most of you have heard the scientific debate about which has the greatest effect on the development of the human personality--and sometimes on our physiology. Are we influenced mostly by Nature (genes, etc) or by Nurture (virtually everything else, including all aspects of our native culture & how we're raised).
Suppose, just for the heck of it, how you might be different right now if everything else were the same in your life up until you were 18-20 except... (You're 10? Go to bed before your parents catch you! It's a school night!)
How would you be different right now if everything else had been the same in your life up until you were 18-20,
--except all the buildings resembled palatial European libraries.
--except your society dictated that all buildings be constructed of identical prefabricated units.
--except you had never seen a city or else had never seen anything else except a city--even in photographs, tv or films.
---
Or, try this. What would you be like, what would your life be like --assuming your family & friends, everything else remained the same-- but going for a walk meant crossing deer parks, strolling along footpaths once frequented by famous men of letters, walking past ancient buildings and the remnants of millenia old stoneworks, hearing the screech of a kite and the cry of a wolf rather than a factory whistle or a siren or the roar of a motorcycle?
And if you got thirsty, you had become used to looking about you for a stream, or a farmer's well, the swaying sign outside a pub, the tower of a church or castle just peeking over the tree tops, the waterhole in use for over a thousand years, or the arrow pointing to the public water fountain inside an exquisite work of art that happens to be a library?
The previous paragraphs are my j/e/a/l/o/u/s/ best guesses about what Lewis saw while hiking or just walking, from his youth, while a college don, until near the end of his life. See Lewis' beautiful but fictional description of a similar experience in "That Hideous Strength: Sale of College Property", Section 3. Don't you so want the place--but not the plot--to be true?
Aren't we sometimes what we see?
SherryT