Sunday, December 8, 2019

Speaking of Virtue

Ah, here it is, the morning of the second day of my Write Something Every Day program. The idea here is that I will be engaging in the process of writing even when I don't feel like it because that will be good for me in certain ways. It's a kind of spiritual discipline, cultivating habits of mind that are worthwhile and also perhaps the virtue of diligence.

Speaking if virtue, I've been reading Karen Swallow Prior's book, On Reading Well and thoroughly enjoying it. Prior sets out to write about 12 virtues, looking at each through the lens of a particular work of fiction. In each chapter I have learned much about the virtue in question and also about the work of fiction. And each chapter (I'm in the 7th chapter at the moment) has made me want to read (or re-read) the work of fiction.

Here are the virtues dealt with, coupled with the books that she used to explicate the virtue:
  • Prudence - Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding
  • Temperance - The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Justice - A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
  • Courage - Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
  • Faith - Silence, by Shusaku Endo
  • Hope - The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
  • Love - The Death of Ivan Illych, by Leo Tolstoy
  • Chastity - Ethan Fromme, by Edith Wharton
  • Diligence - Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan
  • Patience - Persuasion, by Jane Austen
  • Kindness - "Tenth of December," by George Saunders
  • Humility - "Revelation" and "Everything that Rises Must Converge, by Flanner O'Connor
I will have more to say about the book, and about the virtues, in upcoming posts. For now I'll just say, I love this book.


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