Chris Hedges indicated in his book “Death of the Liberal Class,” if we don’t find a way to change things — if rebels don’t revolt — we will end up in a world in which we would not want to
Chris Hedges indicated in his book “Death of the Liberal Class,” if we don’t find a way to change things — if rebels don’t revolt — we will end up in a world in which we would not want to live.
I agree.
I could not live, I would not want to live, in a world without books. I’m surrounded by books. On just about any subject. You name it. There is little I need to know I can’t find here somewhere.
I don’t read books. I consume them. I earmark, scribble in the margins, fight with the authors on a variety of different subjects and can go back to this very same book sitting on a dusty shelf, open it up — sneeze — and peruse the sacrilege. I can actually see how I’ve grown, or changed, or traipsed up or down a different path.
Books are my friends. I’ve carried them in my travels for years. Fifty. Sixty. Books beloved in my childhood. “Alice in Wonderland.” “The Jungle Book.” My husband was in love with Kipling’s poetry. I was in love with Rikki Tikki Tavi. Shere Khan. Mowgli.
I took an acid trip once in the ‘60s — like everyone else — and went down the rabbit hole. One of the most beautiful, mind-blowing experiences in my life. So beautiful I never took another. I mean, what if it were as bad as that one was good? Actually, I don’t think my mind would send me on a bad trip. Maybe, like Timothy Leary — the father of LSD — I’ll go out on one.
I’ll set the scene. Out in my jungle, under a glorious shroud of twinkles, a setting moon, overwhelmed by a whisper soft breeze, a cricket song, surrounded by my animals. My horse, I’ll always have one. My dog. Maybe Duke, my macaw – who will outlive me — standing vigilant, a silent winged guide to somewhere else. I’ll clutch in my hand my favorite book. The battered and bruised Thurber Carnival. Sip slowly a glass of chilled Chardonnay — how will that go with acid, I wonder — and hele on.
But I digress.
I have in my reference a venerable MCMLXXMCMLXXV (my computer freaked on this) copy of Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia in which, in volume P, there are 10 pages about Palestine and a beautiful picture of Dorothy Rothschild, better known as Dorothy Parker (1893-1967). Maybe I’ll take that, too.
Dorothy’s dead and done. So is Palestine. In a recent copy of The Far East for Dummies, it isn’t even mentioned, an entire country downs the memory hole.
Goebbels said, “If you lie big enough, and keep repeating it, people will eventually believe it.”
Aldous Huxley said, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
Understand why Hitler burned books.
Maybe I’ll have a Viking’s funeral with my books as tinder.
No. I’ll leave them behind for dumbed-down brown shirts to roast what’s left of their empty brains in.
A world without books.
No thanks.
• Bettejo Dux is a local resident and author of ‘The Scam: A madcap romp through North Shore Kaua‘i.’
