"Fear Not the Lions" - why it's worth reading old books to our kids and to ourselves

 
I have read Pilgrim's Progress several times since following the Lord two decades ago, and while it sometimes gets an eyeroll from better readers than me, I love it. I love that Bunyan is attempting to tell an impossibly huge story in such a simple, direct way. A child can understand it. That was brought home to me in a small but powerful way yesterday.

We homeschool following the AmblesideOnline rotation, which means Pilgrim's Progress is read through slowly in years 2 and 3. My 9 year old finished it last year, and my 7 year old son began it this year. I enjoy reading it aloud, mostly because I have a far better handle on the bumpy 17th century English than I did even last year, and because it means I get to walk this favorite literary path again, this time with my youngest child. It is his first time setting his feet on this dusty road, something which I hadn't considered much until we came to the part where Christian drops his scroll and it rolls away. My son gasped.

That small, quiet, involuntary gasp of surprise and suspense has been echoing in my mind since then. He felt the suspense and surprise Bunyan meant his readers to feel, felt it immediately, intensely. He was absolutely tracking mentally and emotionally with this old story told in an old language, and he was affected by it. And allow me to underscore that he was affected by the original archaic version, crowded with thee's and thou's and decidedly unmodern phrasing.

Many thoughts have been crowding in my mind since then but here are a few take-aways:

- The ability of the one reading aloud matters. I understand my material, I have worked hard over the years to familiarize myself with this antiquated version of our language. I am not perfect, but the quality of my reading aloud is better now than it was when we started to homeschool. That is not to praise myself, but to say that the work and time and practice pays off, and benefits not only myself, but my listeners. I am thankful, so thankful, that homeschooling has afforded me this opportunity. It has enriched my life and the life of my family more than I realize. My son's gasp was evidence of that.

- Children can absolutely understand hard books, especially if you make it a practice of reading them. Not only hard books and not always hard books, but difficult books should form a part of their literary diet. We are reading Paradise Lost in our morning time and while much goes over my 7 year old's head, he is able to follow the basic story. It's the same when I read Shakespeare to my kids. I have one child who struggles with reading and writing, but this child has zero problems following along, too. (As an aside, we alternate Shakespeare and Milton with Silverstein and Milne. Balance.)

- The current movement to take old books out of schools and school curriculum is a real tragedy. This change in education not only takes from our children their cultural heritage, it also denies them any opportunity to step outside of their time and place and modern mindset. They are not allowed to experience and understand life from a different perspective and context in the history of mankind. It also robs them of the opportunity to connect with gifted authors from centuries before. When we are affected by the work of an author long dead, an author who is maybe even considered "irrelevant" by The Experts, we are reminded that humanity now and humanity then is not as different as we might think. We are not so advanced. They were not so backward.

We are not only brought in to listen to the Great Conversation, but when a work resonates with us and we respond to a work for what it is in itself, we participate in it. In Experiment in Criticism, C.S. Lewis talks about a house full of "literary" people excitedly discussing the latest novel in fashion because it is the latest novel, not for the novel itself. This kind of fashionable reader is what he calls the "status seeker." But for all their books, they are not literary. "The true reader," he says, "reads every work seriously in the sense that he reads it whole-heartedly, makes himself as receptive as he can. ...He will read 'in the same spirit that the author writ.' While downstairs, Lewis says, the fashionable readers in the family are discussing fashionable novels and name-dropping fashionable authors, "the only real literary experience in such a family may be occurring in a back bedroom where a small boy is reading Treasure Island under the bed-clothes by the light of an electric torch." The adults are all about taste and style. The boy is reading for pleasure and genuine enjoyment. He is reading "'in the same spirit that the author writ'" and that "whole-heartedly." Lewis says this boy is the only one in the house having "a real literary experience." My son's gasp of shock and fear is the dipping of his toe into the great river of Literature and feeling the cold waters for himself. He is not focusing on the quality of the wetness of the water, which in my opinion is pretty much all the fashionable literary talk amounts to.

- I was reminded that the small, daily doses of literature we take in and truly experience - experience for themselves as themselves - is our own small, daily contribution to the larger task of keeping these great works alive. It is, in its way, a kind of joining in the work of those long ago Irish monks in their cold stone scriptoriums, preserving works of art and antiquity in the midst of the heavy cultural darkness and with the constant threat of violent, materialistic barbarians tearing their beautiful manuscripts to pieces. Our methods are different, obviously, but the goal is the same - to preserve and pass on and, most important of all, to enjoy.

There is so much more knocking around my mind, but I'll leave it there and just share this - after reading about how Christian found his scroll and ascended again the hill Difficulty, we came to the part where he is met with the sight of the palace Beautiful. But when Christian looks ahead, he sees standing between him and the palace Beautiful two terrible lions.

"We'll stop here," I told my son.

"But how does he get past the lions, mom?!"

"We'll find out next week!"

I think Bunyan would have been pleased that so many years after he wrote the story, it still has the power to make a 7 year-old boy gasp in horror at the idea of lions lying on the path between Christian and the palace Beautiful. It's still being read in the spirit in which he wrote it. My son was genuinely dismayed and concerned for Christian. I can't wait for next week when he finds out the lions are chained.

Now by this time he was come to the arbour again, where for a while he sat down and wept; but at last (as Christian would have it) looking sorrowfully down under the settle, there he espied his roll, the which he with trembling and haste caught up, and put into his bosom; but who can tell how joyful this man was when he had gotten his roll again! For this roll was the assurance of his life and acceptance at the desired haven. Therefore he laid it up in his bosom; gave thanks to God for directing his eye to the place where it lay; and with joy and tears betook himself again to his journey. But oh, how nimbly now did he go up the rest of the hill! Yet before he got up, the sun went down upon Christian; and this made him again recall the vanity of his sleeping, and thus he again began to condole with himself: "Oh, thou sinful sleep! how for thy sake am I like to be benighted in my journey! I must walk without the sun; darkness must cover the path of my feet; and I must hear the noise of the doleful creatures-- because of my sinful sleep!" Now also he remembered the story that Mistrust and Timorous told him of--how they were frightened with the sight of the lions. Then said Christian to himself again, "These beasts range in the night for their prey; and if they should meet with me in the dark, how should I shift them? how should I escape being by them torn in pieces?" Thus he went on his way; but while he was thus bewailing his unhappy miscarriage, he lift up his eyes, and behold, there was a very stately palace before him, the name of which was "Beautiful," and it stood just by the highway side. 

So I saw in my dream that he made haste and went forward, that if possible he might get lodging there. Now before he had gone far, he entered into a very narrow passage, which was about a furlong off of the porter's lodge; and, looking very narrowly before him as he went, he espied two lions in the way.

Now, thought he, I see the dangers by which Mistrust and Timorous were driven back. (The lions were chained; but he saw not the chains.) Then he was afraid, and thought also himself to go back after them; for he thought nothing but death was before him. But the porter at the lodge, whose name is Watchful, perceiving that Christian made a halt, as if he would go back, cried unto him, saying, "Is thy strength so small?

"And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?" Mark 4:40

fear not the lions; for they are chained, and are placed there for trial of faith where it is; and for discovery of those that have none: keep in the midst of the path, and no hurt shall come unto thee!"

Then I saw that he went on, trembling for fear of the lions, but taking good heed to the directions of the porter. He heard them roar; but they did him no harm. Then he clapped his hands, and went on till he came and stood before the gate where the porter was.