How the Bestsellers killed the Classics

The following words are not mine, I received them in an email, but they did have a strong impact on me over the last couple of weeks. They are by Victoria Boutenko a russian lady heavily involved in the raw food movement and expounder of green smoothies for health. After reading what she had to say on the subject I made a new years resolution to try and read one classic novel per month this year. Will see how I go with that.

The discovery of what I am about to share with you began when I decided to buy some classic stories adapted for children for my two cute grandchildren, Nic and Lily. When I was six, my father read me an adaptation of Robinson Crusoe with beautiful illustrations, White Fang, Gulliver’s Travels, Huckleberry Finn, Alice in Wonderland, and Hans Christian Andersen, as well as Russian children’s classics by Tolstoy, Pushkin, and many others. I grew up in a poor family under a communist government. Reading classical books struck the highest chord in me and kept tuning my spirit to kindness, honesty, courage and a life of creativity. I can easily say that I owe the best in me to the books I read during childhood.

Naturally, I wanted to read these books to my precious grandchildren. That is when I found out that there are very few good children’s books available in this country and they are very hard to find. Most books in stores are cute and fun, but there are almost zero books with depth adapted for young children. Check for yourself- Go to amazon.com and look at the top one hundred bestsellers in children’s books. The majority of these books are aimed to become popular by any means. For example, many of these books are adventures, detective stories, and mystery stories—addicting to read but lack depth. I think it is fine for children to read these books, but only in combination with the other kind of books, namely classical books. Classic books teach human virtues, discuss psychology on a personal level, especially in today’s world where our direct communication with other humans is so limited due to our many hours of watching TV and playing video games.

According to Merriam Webster, a classic is “a work of enduring excellence”. Wikipedia defines classic as “something with a timeless quality.”

You may say that maybe some of today’s adventure books will become classics eventually. I believe that very few of them could possibly last that long considering that the bestselling list changes daily. The authors are competing to become bestsellers, pushing yesterday’s most popular reads down below.

According to Merriam Webster, a bestseller is a book “whose sales are among the highest of its class.”

Do we really consciously choose “higher sales” over “enduring excellence?”

What makes a book a classic is the supreme honesty of the author. I believe that inside we are all very similar, so when we read a book written with honesty we can recognize our own feelings and emotions and thoughts. By reading such books, we learn important things about ourselves. We learn that we are good, kind individuals, as well as that other people are also good and kind, except sometimes confused. We learn that there is not even one person in the world who intends to hurt others consciously. I believe that such books are fundamentally important for children and young adults, to help them develop into strong, kind beings.

When I went to school in Russia, we were required to read world classics, including great American classics by Theodore Dreiser, Rockwell Kent, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Mayne Reid, James Fenimore Cooper, William Faulkner, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jack London, O. Henry, Mark Twain and others. I would love to see my grandchildren become friends with these books’ characters and cry when the book is over. I observe that in the case of books we are manipulated to accept what is advertised to us, instead of the best. Our culture of brainwash marketing keeps dictating for us to eat fast food instead of whole foods, to drink soda instead of pure water, to wear synthetic clothes instead of natural fibers, to listen to the hits instead of good music, to watch violence on TV instead of walking in nature, and so on.

One of my favorite books when I was a little girl was Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. In that book the author describes the “Fool Land” where nobody has to work or make any effort, but they could eat, drink, ride carousels and have unlimited fun. When people hear about the Fool Land, nobody can resist, and everyone goes there. However, after they spend a certain time in this land they grow donkey ears and later turn into donkeys. Then they are converted into slaves and do nothing but hard work. In a way, that Fool Land represents the society where everything is portrayed for us by advertising. It’s so easy to believe that whatever is promised is real, however, later we might find ourselves trapped in credit card debt, sickness and despair.

How can we find the way out of Fool Land? I believe it will be a battle for everyone in their personal life. However, we can equip our children with wisdom, kindness and courage by exposing them to the best people in human history, who wrote the classical books that moved the hearts of generations.

Emotional Ties part 2

In my teen years I used to suffer from dizzy spells and blackouts. I don’t think I ever actually fainted, but I definitely came close. One day it was the worst incident ever, I was at church and I came out of the ladies and it was like my vision disappeared and I couldn’t see a thing in front of me. I started feeling the walls because I knew I was really close to the exit and as I walked outside I thought I heard someone say my name.

I stopped because I could see a little bit, but not in a normal way. It was like those old photo negatives that you get that reverse the colours, but instead of that, instead of seeing shapes I could only see the outline of those shapes and the colours inside were missing. I could see the outline of a tree in front of me but not the green of the leaves. I headed towards the tree and plunked myself down under it, and closed my eyes. I felt really heavy and lethargic and weak. I thought I might be dying. The first thing I was aware of though, was my sisters voice, “You look dead.”

Then Mum & my aunty arrived & dragged me off the ground and helped me up to the car, took me home and forced a spoonful of sugar into my mouth. I nearly choked on it, so they gave me some water too, but within a few minutes I started coming around and then they gave me some proper food.

My impression was that the belief I had taken on at this time was that I was going to die and sugar saved my life (hence my addiction to it). When I pondered on what the truth might be, what I came up with was that food is nourishing, sugar is not. Since then I haven’t had any compulsion to eat sugar or chocolate, which is astounding to me. I started eating a chocolate bar the other day and put it down after one mouthful, which never happens. I’m totally blown away by the change in me after one small event.

Emotional Ties

Over the last few days I’ve had a hankering to write, which is quite unusual because I haven’t had that feeling for a long time. Usually when I do write something its because I’ve forced myself to do so after a long time of thinking about it and not actually doing it. But that’s changed, something has changed within me and I’m not sure what it is exactly.

Yesterday I fasted, for two reasons. One was for help for a friend who is going through a rough patch at the moment, and the other was for me to be able to find out my emotional connection to food. My friend reckoned that’s what she did and that enabled her to lose masses of weight and stopped her eating compulsively. Most people eat compulsively, so I don’t feel bad about it, but it is something that I would like to change about myself because I never used to do that.

It’s a bit of a long story though, I should go back and figure out what I actually want to say about it. Til next time.

Spiritual Lessons

I was at the library looking for a book recommended to me by one of my friends, "You can heal your life" by Louise Hay. All the copies were out, so i had to reserve one. I ended up picking up two other books from the same author, one Im currently reading which is different peoples spiritual lessons that they have learnt, either from their own experiences or stories that other people have told them. I was amazed at the authors recounting her own horrific childhood experiences. It seems that she really did take the bitter pill of her own childhood and turn it into something beautiful which has helped many other people.

The other book of hers i grabbed was daily meditations. In the front it said to close your eyes, open to a page and that will be the thing you need for that day. It amazed me because I did it and it talked about cleaning up your house, getting rid of old clothes and yuck food from your fridge. That morning before getting to the library I had gone through my clothes and taken out some things and put in a bag to drop off at the clothes bin, and I had cleaned my stuff out of the fridge a few days before when I was shifting house. Every day since then I've opened that little book and been surprised and delighted by the messages that its given me, which usually feel totally pertinent to what I've been experiencing that day.

Sydney Day

Arrived at 9am yesterday and it took over an hour to get through customs, which was surprising because last time it barely took 15mins. There were so so many people all queued up at the airport and a lot of grumpy stuff members. It was a lot different than other times I've landed in sydney. We got the train into the city and got set up at our hostel, crashed out for a bit and then went to Paddys Market for some awesome cheap fruit and veg. My friend got a new Iphone cover and a cute ozzie carrybag. Then we got the train up north a bit and met my friend at her school so we could go catch up. We ended up getting a hot choc at a bar where there were a huge group of irish and welsh supporters about to watch the game, it was a bit scary sitting there in the middle of them screaming at the tv. Then we went to Sushi Train, a restaurant I was looking forward to going to see. They have a little moving belt that they put the food on and you just choose which dishes you want to try, then pay for it at the end. It was so much fun. Then we went shopping at Myers and all tried on the same beautiful dress, unfortunately it didn't fit any of the three of us. We got dropped off at the hostel and intended to just lie down for a minute, I woke up 3hrs later and my friend woke up 12hrs later. Considering we'd only had minimal sleep the night before it was great. I felt so much better in the morning.

Today we went to see General Conference, then got the free bus around town, rung people at home and had a delicious dinner. It was great. Tomorrow we're going to Luna Park, this revived 1930s amusement park, I'm looking forward to it.

Sydney

At the airport, waiting for our flight to board, its been delayed so will be here a while. I'm so glad we arrived when we did though, because a huge group of people arrived straight after us and checkin took quite a while, I hate standing in queues.

Will be over there for a week with my flatmate, doing all kinds of touristy things, will hopefully do an opera house tour, go up the top of Sydney tower, and finally go to Luna Park (we seem to drive past it every other time I"ve been to sydney and I've always thought I'd really like to go, just have never had a chance yet).

Also hoping to catch up with friends while I'm there, should be good.

Forget Me Not

Last week was the Relief Society General Broadcast, and I really liked Elder Uchtdorfs talk about 5 things we shouldn’t forget. He talked about the Forget me not flower and how much it meant to him, and what lessons we, as women, could take away from it.

1. Forget not to be patient with yourself
God knows we’re not perfect, nor those people we think are perfect. Comparing yourself to others will make you miserable. Celebrate your own good efforts.

2. Forget not that there are good sacrifices & there are foolish sacrifices
Staying up to look after a sick child is a good thing, staying up to sew 30 handouts for your Relief Society lesson is not

3. Forget not to be happy now
In the movie Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka the chocolate genius hides 5 golden tickets in his chocolate bars, with the promise that those who obtain the tickets will win a lifetime supply of chocolate and a private tour of his factory. People become obsessed with getting the tickets, to the point that chocolate, which used to be such a joy, is now a disappointment. We shouldn’t put happiness on hold while waiting for a specific event, eg marriage.

4. Forget not the “Why” of the gospel
Why we do stuff is important. Not to feel obliged, but “why” motivation sparks an eternal fire in people that will cause them to do what they need to.

5. Forget not that the Lord knows and loves you
What is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of Man that thou visitest him, for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and has crowned him with glory and honour. You are closer to heaven than you suppose.