The greatness of a writer is not measured by how many books he sells, nor by how famous he/she has become. These are frivolous benchmarks for assessing the value of a writer, for anyone with means, influence, and support can cascade along a red carpet laid by another.
Rather, a great piece of writing is treasured in your heart and revisited until the day you draw your last breath. It reminds you of who you are, who you desire to be, and the possibilities around you, and it gives you hope that the universe has more to offer. A good book is spiritual. Such a treasured possession is one you would not want to part with, yearning to keep it selfishly hidden — a secret from others. Why share something you love so dearly with those who do not understand how to appreciate it? Every home that has a safe will have an object dear that only its owner understands.
If you have read this review to exactly where your eyes rest at this moment and have not felt as though a hat was thrown at you, then read on. I intend to share with you an experience that is personal; therefore, I shall dispense with those who read to impress and beckon the few who read to emancipate themselves from oppression. I hope that this review does justice to the spirit of its writer. That will be a feat that only the reader of this article can determine. This is my attempt to entice you to one day read the essay Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
“Where is the master that could have thought Shakespeare? … Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.”
When you dive into reading Emerson, prepare yourself to be challenged. Although his writing is polite and poetic, his ideas are bold and resolute. They are well-formed observations that can stir profound appreciation for humanity and its work. If you are looking for a motivating speaker who is not loud and, in your face, but cultured and profound, he is someone that you should meet. Take a chance and try his fare; he will grow on you — I swear.
His existential approach will make you question academic, religious, and political institutions as inhibitors to understanding your own possibilities. It is a form of polite rebel-rousing, not destructive in forcing social change, but directed towards questioning the man in the mirror. If the journey is important to you, Nature will provide it.
“Every scripture should be interpreted by the same spirit which gave it forth.”
Emerson was a godly man, not an atheist. He studied at the Harvard University and later at the Harvard Divinity School. One may see a contradiction here and question how a man from institutionalised academia could free himself from the clutches of order and structure — how a man of god could also be a free spirit. The answer is beautifully strewn in the pages of Nature. Here is a quote from the book that will surely stir the reader in you:
“We know the spirit exists because nature stirs in us the desire to think.”
He accepts the spirit as existing, which is a fundamental quality of a man of god. If you look to god for guidance, as shaped by your upbringing, you will not feel estranged. He is with you as you read. However, when god becomes institutionalised — which is religion — and when any institution for that matter demands conformity, it may look upon his work with a frown, for it will stir in you the desire to think.
Institution and art have often looked at each other as opposites for this reason: one expects you to follow and seek approval, while the other is scandalously self-approving.
Reading Nature can be a daunting task. Compare it to someone trying to relieve the stress of a weekday’s work by watching Citizen Kane by George Orson Welles. If you are not a seasoned film enthusiast, it may feel like a waste of time, regardless of your love for movies. But, if you are in the habit of reading a film, you will surely feast your eyes upon it. Such is the artistry of this book.
Twenty years ago, I first encountered Emerson while reading praise of him by the German, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche in The Gay Science. Nietzsche credits Emerson as a source of great influence. At a time when the internet was not widely available and printing was cumbersome, unlike today, I was curious to read the reason that a German philosopher admired another across the Atlantic.
The book takes its stance as an avant-garde work of its time. It stands as a bold appreciation of nonconformist literature. However, a 21st-century reader might feel that the novelty that Emerson presented to his readers, though fascinating then, may seem worn today. The invention of the light bulb is not as exciting now as it was in Thomas Alva Edison’s time. You might even want to set the book aside. However, it is important to read Nature, like many other works of antiquity, as a portal to discovering what was — and thereby understanding what is.
“When the thought of lato becomes the thought of me … time is no more.”
The reader must vacillate between points in time. He must see how the past shaped our present state. Emerson tends to history as a psychologist tends to the human mind.
“Of the working of this mind, history is the record.”
History is not merely a record of human endeavours; it reveals human capacity. The pyramids, the Egyptians, Moses, the Greeks, Christianity, Christopher Columbus, Isaac Newton, Napoleon Bonaparte — these names resonate with a capacity within the human spirit that can reach beyond limitation. If history records that something was done, the individual reading it believes that he/she too can act. Our influence upon nature over the years is a recreation of humanity’s desire from within.
“In old Rome, the public roads, beginning at the forum, proceeded north, south, east, and west to the centre of every province of the empire… so out of the human heart go, as it were, the highways to the heart of every object of nature, to reduce it under the dominion of man…”
Comparing your immediate surroundings to the content being read is one of the reader’s great joys. It is an inescapable phenomenon that forces you to evaluate your truth against that of the writer — your world as opposed to his. Thus, I had my share of questions:
What is Emerson’s take on ideas that are not Western?
Where would this book stand in the modern world?
What opinion would Emerson have of the Dadaist movement and Brutalist architecture?
How would Emerson have perceived the development of cinema and the challenging ideas brought about by the modernist era?
Nature is a book honest at heart. Emerson does not try to please nor to offend. The imagery is captured through his own eyes. His thoughts arise purely from his own perspective. Lama Hewage Don Martin Wickramasinghe believed that an artist must speak of the world that he/she sees and experiences. The truth in experience is universal; therefore, we relate to what is spoken, whether it is a poet from the Himalayas or from Africa.
“Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes.”
Nature cherishes solitude — a strong Buddhist sentiment. Does not the above quote remind you of the Nepali Buddha’s Bhumisparsha Mudra — the expulsion of the ego at the approval of nature?
Nature is also god and is never absent in these essays (Nature is a set of three essays: Nature, History, and Self-Reliance).
“I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the universal being circulate through me; I am part or particle of god.”
Nature, History, and Self-Reliance can mean many things depending on when you read them. Nature conflates the natural world with the human spirit. History is the outward story of the human mind, and Self-Reliance speaks of the possibilities that can become.
Its style is poetic and gives the reader the sense of continually encountering quotable lines, making it a joyful experience when read aloud.
This is a book that I was reluctant to openly share with all. But, I must take you back to the time that I met Emerson. I found him as I was finding myself. It was the selfless act of appreciation that brought him my way. Therefore, I too must be courteous in my praise.
If you have read this review — my review — as a Sri Lankan born into a liberal Muslim household, producing drama in English, who holds no academic accolade, then you have had the curiosity to discover what lies hidden through the eyes of an unlikely individual. Your curiosity is genius. It is not out of vanity that I speak of myself alongside the eminent Emerson, but to give the reader an idea of where I stand so that he/she may better judge this review.
Come, dive into the pages of Nature and you will surely encounter intellectual independence. If I am to clarify all that I have read, I might as well replace this review with the entire book. So, like the Italian Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, travel through this book expecting to encounter enduring insight that will surely kindle the endless possibilities within you.
The writer is a drama writer, director, producer, teacher and promoter. He is the Creative Director of the Sri Theatre Company
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The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication