On reading the classics..............

Every Chautauqua should have a list somewhere of valuable things to remember that can be kept in some safe space for times of future need and inspiration.  ...

     Books.  I don't know of any other cyclist who takes books with him.  They take a  lot of space, but I have three of them here anyway, with some loose sheets of paper in them for writing.  These are: ...

     3.  A copy of Thoreau's Walden ... which Chris has never heard and which can be read a hundred times without exhaustion,  I try always to pick a book far over his head and read it as a basis for questions and answers, rather than without interruption.  I read a sentence or two, wait for him to come up with his usual barrage of questions, answer them, then read another sentence or two.  Classics read well this way.  They must be written this way.  Sometimes we have spent a whole evening reading and talking and discovered we have only covered two or three pages.  It's a form of reading done a century ago ... when Chautauquas were popular.  Unless you've tried it you can't imagine how pleasant it is to do it this way.

-Robert M. Pirsig, from Chapter 4, Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance:  An Inquiry Into Values