Books Were Written to be Read

At the end of the day, I study English cause I honestly believe in the power of literature to change lives; maybe not on a national-societal level (examples like the Civil War-inflaming "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and FDA forming "The Jungle" aside, the exceptions prove the rule), at least not directly--but on an individual level, even if a work has no specific agenda either explicitly or implicitly, just reading something exceptionally well-written, for its own sake, revealing what the human mind is capable of, expanding the normally-narrow confines of our perspective, can have long-reaching effects on the reader, therefore influencing human lives, and thus indirectly, the entire race.

So, it does make me sad to realize how few books ever really get read; books were written to be read, you know? Right now I'm drowning in reading, all while becoming more painfully aware of just how many near-infinite number of books I'd have to read to consider myself a true "Master" of English lit.--and that's just limiting myself to the English language, and to accepted "canonical" works of "literature" (whatever that means). But just reading all these books, after having read so much on my own, also causes me to realize how few of these books get read at all. And if the bulk of all reading is only being performed by grad students and academics, well then, what good are these books doing?

When I was a young Mormon missionary in Puerto Rico, I marched around all day just trying to get everyone I met to read only one book--begged them, in fact, because I believed in the power of just that one book to change a life forever. And even then most members of the Church don't read just that one book, at least not regularly. How march harder, then, to convince everyone to read all books, or at least the good ones?

The longer I'm in this field, the more bizarrely comforting Samuel Beckett becomes--I now take a strange sort of consolation in lines like "the time would have passed us by anyway," "I can't go on, I'll go on," and "Ever try. Ever fail. No matter. Try again. Fail better."