The Healthy Diet: Feasting on Literature

“You can’t make a love of literature an agenda. That will just turn it into a weapon to fuel your own exalted sense of self-importance and make you obnoxious to other people. You can, however, ask whether your personal diet of language, form, symbol, and narrative is richer than what can find in an ad for cheap beer or fancy watches. You can ask whether you are feasting on culture ‘veggies’ or only chowing down on entertainment ‘junk food’ (to borrow from Eli Pariser). You can ask whether you are drinking deep of what our culture – which is a poly-culture – has to offer, or if you are settling for what is easy simply because it’s there.” From “Literature by Necessity” by Editor Brad Fruhauff, Relief, Winter 2011.