Earnest Hemingway once said... "There is no friend as loyal as a book"
But books can be disloyal friends, books can be be the beginning of anarchy, they insinuate themselves into your mind, thought processes and Id. Books play with your perceptions of realism, pragmatism, they idolize heroes and right thinking people can be drawn astray, taken by the flow of words. Books are both our savior and Antichrist, our salvation and our demise and who can say which book leads to which end.
I am reader of books and many have changed my thoughts and perceptions over the years. Can I tell which have changed me for the better or the worse? Only an independent advisor could give you an answer to that question but that answer would be be based upon earlier opinions from the books that they have read.
Reading is perilous. Writers can affect your opinion on what you consider “essential truths” leading you to depravity, dissonance and despondency whilst these dislocations from reality many bring you closer to true understanding of the human condition. Perhaps they can can lead you to clarity, conventionalism, certainty and confluence but I doubt it.
I have been a reader all my teenage and adult life but each book I read provides me with more questions than answers. Books are disloyal.
