Clickbait Is Not Wholesome

Clickbait Is Not Wholesome
My Road Goes Ever On

Clickbait is Not Wholesome, deforming minds by inflaming emotions. I choose not to read headline news because bold commentary might inform me on one aspect of a particular event, but to be truly formed, I need more than one point of view. News articles offer “up-to-date” information, but it takes honest, in-depth, age-old human experiences to show me where the human race has been, highlight where we are now, and suggest where we might be heading.

Considering a variety of perspectives and being open to the reasoning behind them allows shadows and light to interplay, creating a fuller three-dimensional picture of events in our world. It makes it much harder to judge people, but perhaps that would be a good thing.

I read a variety of books; some are recommended to me, while others serendipitously fall into my hands. It is the juxtapositions of ideas—past, present, and futuristic—that I find most fascinating. Of late, my omnivorous reading has included titles that entertain, inform, and advise, changing the old me into a person of wider vision if not greater wisdom. Here is a snippet of my reading pleasure these last months:

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan, 1990

Boundaries…Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud, 1992

All About Dreams by Delany Gayle, 1998

Evening in the Palace of Reason by James R. Gaines, 2005

Mockingbird, A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J Shields, 2006

Blood and Thunder, The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard by Mark Finn, 2013

The Art of Beatrix Potter, text by Emily Zach, 2016

The fascinating power behind these books was their immediate influence on society and the authors’ lives continuing impact on the human race.

Beatrix Potter was a sheltered child and grew into a woman who stayed much to herself. She “self-published” her first works, later republished by F. Warne & Co., and yet both Tolkien and C. S. Lewis—men who had an immeasurable impact on both literature and culture—have been recorded as stating that she had a vast influence in their imaginative creations. In her day, Beatrix Potter became a beloved children’s author, but Beatrix was also, to my stunned recent appreciation, an accomplished naturalist who painted specimens so perfectly she shone a light on the innate glory of mushrooms! She lived from 1866 to 1943, but only now is her larger body of work being seen and understood.

Robert E. Howard lived from 1906 to 1936 and struggled to get his unique story-telling style, a cross between “weird fiction and horror,” published. After his death, his work was badly treated, and it took years to clear his name and his literary accomplishments from the taint of those who did not appreciate him as a writer or as a human being.

As an innovator, Robert Howard broke boundaries and cracked open old genres, allowing for new interpretations. He was a remarkable man, taking care of his ailing mother through much of his life despite suffering from a grim view of the world. Tragically, he took his own life at the age of thirty. My sons discovered that Howard’s work resonated deeply with them. On their recommendation, I found not only a new version of literary genius but gained insight into the workings of my sons’ worldviews.

Harper Lee lived from 1926 to 2016 and wrote one noteworthy novel—To Kill a Mockingbird, which according to her life and times, she lifted in great measure from her family and society. The power of her work resonates not simply with the personal story she told but with the larger national narrative unfolding at that epoch in history. Understanding her life from a distant perspective offers insight into the power of her work, why it mattered when she wrote it, and why it still matters today. It was not simply a story of racial inequality but also a powerful testimony of a daughter’s admiration for her father despite the convolutions of her broken world.

All About Dreams by Gale and Boundaries by Cloud are both relatively “recent works” (1990s), meaning that they speak to modern society’s concerns. In surveying the best-selling books of recent years, I discovered a trend—works that focus on immediate needs, covering everything from modern hairstyles and travel guides to cookbooks and baby name books. The most recent bestselling novel I came across focused on WWII themes, a haunting specter that has yet to leave the human imagination.

Evening in the Palace of Reason is a fairly “new book,” though its topic is decidedly historic: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment. Why look back on such well-known people? Hasn’t the Enlightenment been discussed enough? As with the other titles and authors—Gaines is brilliant and witty—the newer, larger, and better-informed perspective allows us to comprehend the world we live in today more fully. This is what the human race has wrestled with in the past, and perhaps if we look at our trajectory, we might consider our future steps a little more carefully.

Finally, I ponder Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, or I could refer to Bandon Sanderson’s The Way of the Kings or George R. R. Martin’s The Game of Thrones—all of which I have read, which surprised me with their deeply flawed human struggle to manage in worlds that seem to baffle the best of the characters—perhaps the authors, too. Fantasy and sci-fi delve into the mysterious “what ifs,” where the human race, set in a fantastically new universe and time, leads us where we may not want to go.

To understand our world today, I do not find insight from bald facts or narrowly focused reading. I find comfort, warning, and a reluctance to judge in reading a wide variety of books, both fiction and nonfiction. Unwholesome, inflammatory clickbait isn’t on my reading list.

A. K. Frailey is the author of 21 books, a teacher for 35 years, and a homeschooling mother. 
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