A Very Old, Very Classic Book ~ BitterSweetLife

Cause' you talk of freedom, don't you see
The only freedom that you'll ever really know
Is written in books from long ago...
- Belle & Sebastian, "If You Find Yourself Caught In Love"

Generally speaking, so I have come to believe, old books are better than new ones. (As C.S. Lewis wrote, "You should at least read one old one to every three new ones.") Therefore it should come as no surprise that one of our most ancient books is the best thing we have going. And this particular title, my title, spans multiple genres. Plato was all right, but my manuscript is not pure philosophizing. Hammurabi had some things going for him, but my book isn't merely a law codex. "How to" textbooks were popular even in the Middle Ages, but my volume is no textbook.

It's sometimes mistaken for a textbook, though. Textbooks: those perennial doorstops, collegiate paperweights, whose mere acquisition has already ripped you off. (Unless you shop at Amazon...) It is puzzling to consider why people place my title in this category. How many of you have had your lives "changed" by a textbook?

For personal growth, let alone change, something more is needed from a book. A three-step dialectic or seven-step approach is unnecessary and actually insulting to the really good stuff. Good content calls for a little exploration, demands effort from the explorer--and gets it--on its own merit. So when we encounter such quality, we shouldn't expect easy "methodical comprehension." That's kid stuff. That's textbook stuff. Great authors don't write Cliff Notes. You can't summarize Tolkien's trilogy in three bullet points.

This is not to say that my classic does not inform the mind. It does. But in a thoroughly organic manner, through saturation and story, not categorization. And one could say its power is, in fact, greater than mere education. A truly great work, my classic has the ability not only to enlighten the reader, but change him.

The author's scope is ambitious. Staggeringly ambitious. He aims to obliterate self-deception, "take us from behind ourselves and place us in front of ourselves."

Yes, my favorite is "strong" enough to positively alter a reader, but not through blunt trauma, verbal blows to the head. Forget the ancient Greek shockers, Ovid's Metamorphoses, The Golden Ass, and their ilk. We're in a different category. Rather, think organic change--slow and (therefore) lasting, soul-outward, subtle and subversive. This is master craftsmanship.

And fittingly so, because the author's scope is ambitious. Staggeringly ambitious. He aims to obliterate self-deception, "take us from behind ourselves and place us in front of ourselves" (Augustine). And if we conceal a delusion of grandeur in our hearts, "even there will he rake for it" (Shakespeare, Henry V). He aims for a sounding of the soul, and in the end, a massive reversal of moral and motive.

To this end, my classic melds story with psychology, sociology with theophany, poetry with philosophy, songs with war accounts. The book defies trite categorization. Law and liberty mingle, heroism clashes with devilish intent. The historical narratives, mythic-stories, landscapes and exposition in my title are striking, but their fundamental meanings must often be searched for, and often, to search for in this context is to be changed.

This is no cryptic spell book. And this is no textbook. This is a book that demands attention. This is a book that must be read.

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