Ursula K. Le Guin’s Playful and Profound Children’s Poem about the Power of Books and Why We Read
By Maria Popova
When asked in the Proust Questionnaire about his idea of perfect happiness, David Bowie answered simply: “Reading.” But the question of why we read unlatches as many responses as there are flavors of human happiness. Some memorable and poetic answers have come from Hermann Hesse, Rebecca Solnit, Neil Gaiman, C.S. Lewis, and Proust himself.
A thoroughly original and most delightful one comes from the irreplaceable Ursula K. Le Guin (October 21, 1929–January 22, 2018) in her contribution to A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader (public library) — which, as far as I am aware, was her last published piece of original writing at the time the book alighted on the world.
Written in verse, in the voice of an aged dragon — “second cousin once removed” of Smaug, Tolkien’s iconic antagonist from The Hobbit — and illustrated by her longtime friend and collaborator Charles Vess, the letter-poem emanates Le Guin’s signature warm wisdom, syncopating the playful and the profound.
Dear Reader,
Most dragons don’t know how to read. They hiss and fume and guard their hoard. A tasty knight is what they need
For dinner (they spit out the sword),
Then go to sleep on heaps of treasure. They’ve no use for the written word.
But I learned early to take pleasure
In reading tales and poetry,
And soon I knew that I preferred
Reading a book to fighting knights.
I lived on apple pie and tea,
Which a kind lady made for me,
And all my days and half my nights
Were spent in reading story-books,
A life more thrilling than it looks.
Now that I’m old and cannot see
To read, the lady’s youngest child
Comes every day to read to me,
A cheerful child named Valentine.
We’re both as happy as can be
Among the treasures I have piled
In heaps around my apple tree.
No other dragon watches curled
Around such riches as are mine,
My Word-hoard, my dear Library:
For every book contains a world!Yours truly,
Bedraug (Smaug’s Second Cousin Once Removed)
For more tastes of A Velocity of Being — a labor of love eight years in the making, with all proceeds benefiting our local public library system (lest we forget, Le Guin herself passionately championed the sacredness of public libraries) — savor select letters by Alain de Botton, Jacqueline Woodson, and Jane Goodall, then revisit Le Guin on literature as the operating instructions for life, writing as falling in love, the power of storytelling to transform and redeem, and her timeless hymn to time.
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Published October 21, 2019
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https://www.themarginalian.org/2019/10/21/ursula-k-le-guin-reading-poem/
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