[1] What does Edmundson's statement "We need to learn not simply to read books, but to allow ourselves to be read by them" mean to you?

     The words in the sentence immediately preceding the quote in question are of great help, I think, as a starting point for this discussion: "a sense of hope that they [books] will tell us something we don't know about the world or give us an entirely fresh way to apprehend experience" (Edmundson 46). To say that we should allow books to "read" us is simply an elegant and poetic way of saying that we need to allow authors access to our deepest inner selves when their words "come knocking." William Blake: "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite". A great quote (and Jim Morrison's inspiration in naming The Doors), what is meant is that we need to remove our prejudices and biases when approaching literature (or any art form for that matter).

     Opening our minds to new ideas should be the ultimate goal of reading. Edmundson is lamenting the fact that academia has lost sight of that, due to the smoke and mirrors of criticism and theory that are applied instead. (And a bit hypocritically, I might add, with all his name-dropping of and quotes from critics and theorists). But it comes with the territory- a professor of literature has to acknowledge the scholarly side of the equation. There's a paradox in there, in my opinion. The more time one spends reading literary criticism, the less time they have to read the "first-generation" literature. I suppose it's a matter of balance. As a musician, I've listened to a lot of music. I've also studied a considerable amount of music theory. There are people that go to one extreme or the other, and the rest of us fall somewhere in the middle. (The middle is best for most of us, I believe). Philosophers are great, and they do an important "job". But if all of us were philosophers, how would we eat?

     One of the most profound reading experiences I've ever had was when I first came across Carlos Castaneda. He's an anthropologist that became popular in the late 1960s and 1970s with his books about shamanism and ritualistic use of psychedelic drugs in central Mexico. (I had no idea who he was- I was merely at the local library and I thought the book jacket looked cool). But once I got a few chapters in, I felt like I'd met a wonderful storyteller and two outrageous characters he was friends with (Castaneda wrote in first person about his adventures with two sorcerers named don Juan and don Genaro. It was sort of like Cervantes' Don Quixote on drugs!). His descriptions of landscapes and other phenomena would somehow trigger vivid memories of my own childhood; a deja vu effect that still mystifies me. I have no idea how this author's words accomplished that; but it's safe to say that he somehow "read" me inside out. Never mind that his authenticity as a journalist came into question later- fact or fiction he moved me deeply with his words, and I still return to him on occasions. That, I guess, is a good example of how I've been x-rayed by literature at various times in my life.

[2] Edmundson appears to believe that only "major works" will sustain the question "is it true"? What do you think; what about minor or popular works of literature and art? Do we subject them to the same level of interrogation? Do we expect the same answers? What defines a "major work" for you?

     I believe there is only one fair way to decide what a "major work" is, even though there are exceptions. But the rule of thumb must be: a major work has to stand up to the passing of time- and the longer the better. What is a book's shelf-life? This determines its major league status. Paradise Lost by John Milton- MAJOR. East of Eden by John Steinbeck- major. (You see the difference). Paradise by Judith McNaught- (a modern romance novel)- minor. The latter may or may not improve with age- time certainly can't be the only criteria. A high degree of quality is implied, isn't it?

     Time is important. But so is timelessness. Did the work matter a thousand years ago; does it resonate now; and will it still matter a thousand years in the future? We have a handful of examples to date of such. The Bible. Homer. Dante. Virgil. Those are Western examples, the world has others of course. There's the "Western Canon", a list agreed upon by many scholars as the most influential books/works of art. (There is some justly deserved criticism, however that all the authors/artists tend to be "dead European men.")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_canon

     I can empathize with a female reader who asks "Why are female authors so under-represented?" and likewise with minorities that notice the same deficit. The reason the list is skewed- in a large sense, is because mostly white men compiled it. But it goes beyond that alone. There really are less great female and minority authors so far in history, because they haven't had the same opportunities until fairly recently. They have many centuries of catching up to do.

     There are future major works already among us, we can hope. J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings might be a contender some generations from now. (Or not). Is fantasy too restricted a genre? I think there's a depth there that compares to The Iliad or the Odyssey... Edgar Allan Poe or Mark Twain are not ancient names yet, but weren't they major players?

     The world acknowledges Beethoven and Bach; I strongly believe The Beatles deserve a similar status. But the time hasn't come yet, and will not in their lifetime. Even the US Postal Service (until recently) would not put a person's image on a stamp unless they'd been deceased at least five years. So is that the ultimate criterion? Do you have to be dead to matter?

[3] In "But Shakespeare" and "Hamlet" Edmundson reflects on the "live options" in the West's greatest writer. What does he mean by "live options" and how does this relate to his point about major works?

     Edmundson gives his explanation of the term "live options" right at the beginning of the "But Shakespeare" chapter: "paths one might take, modes of seeing and saying and doing that we can put into action in the world" (74). Live options is an interesting term- I would suggest "real-world applications" as similar in intent. How can a given piece of literature, such as a major work by the likes of Shakespeare, change our lives? And can these changes can be concrete as well as abstract?

     I've used the Bible already in this discussion, and although I am not a Christian, I can still respect the wisdom and universal truths one can find in it. This is an obvious major work of which people have asked "can I live it?" and decided yes (and sometimes no). This would be true of any of the world's religions and their accompanying texts.

     Can we call the iconic scientific writings (On the Origin of Species, The Interpretation of Dreams, etc.) major works of literature? Yes, I think so. Such non-fiction works have major influence on our intellectual lives and how we perceive the world. Even a lesser known work, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, caused a major environmental movement, and there have been many similar examples. Jane Goodall, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking.

     But so far I've avoided fiction, poetry, and of course the drama of Shakespeare et al. How does a scene in Hamlet change our lives? What can we apply to our world from some stanzas in Leaves of Grass? The answers are more ephemeral. We know in a visceral sense that "we are what we eat"... but is it equally true that "we are what we think?" or the even more tenuous "we are how we feel?" It's a harder call, but I think so. Yes, all three statements are true.

     *And I had to add it here in an edit, because somehow I missed the obvious terminal of my train of thought- we are what we read.

     I'm a different person (even physically, I would argue) from having read a lot of great books than I would be if I hadn't. Surely I would have made an alternate set of life choices if I didn't possess those sensibilities. Perhaps I would have treated others with less empathy, or been more prone to violence or despair when facing difficult situations. There have been moments of great personal sadness in my life, and yet somehow I was always able to see the "poetry" of those instances. I am very thankful for the existence of such "live options."

@Mary Ann Kiser: