Underlining

I'm an underliner. There are people out there (my husband among them) who wouldn't dream of putting a mark in a book. But I learned way back in my college English major days that underlining—with its accompanying notes in the margin in pencil—was much more effective than trying to take notes. It's a record of what made that book good, of what I was thinking of when I was reading it, of what I learned. One of my favorites is an old, beat-up copy of Huckleberry Finn that I bought as a college freshman. I loaned it to friend after I used it, so it has her notes alongside of mine. It's one of my greatest book treasures.

Here are some of the passages I've underlined from books I pulled off the shelf:

From Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis:

"The gods have been accused by you. Now's their turn."
"I cannot hope for mercy."
"Infinite hopes—and fears—may both be yours. Be sure that, whatever else you get, you will not get justice."
"Are the gods not just?"
"Oh no, child. What would become of us if they were?"

From Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, as Huck reflects on the tarring and feathering of the duke and the king:

"Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another."

From Calvin's Institutes:

"Those for whom prophetic doctrine is tasteless ought to be thought of as lacking taste buds."

From Too Good to Be True by Michael Horton:

"The good news is never that one has died, but that death has been ultimately conquered by the Lord of life. At the graveside, neither optimism nor pessimism; sentimentalism or stoicism, tell us what is happening here. Only Jesus' cross and resurrection define the event for us."

Why did I underline these passages? What made them stand out? I underline passages that are full of meaning—that help me see old truths in a new way. I also underline passages that are integral to the message of the book. I also like to underline beautifully written passages. I underline things that I want to remember. I remember being shocked as I read Lewis and realized that God, in fact, does not serve us justice because we would be destroyed. And Twain, via Huck, reminds us of the depravity of man. Calvin's turn of phrase is both clever and truthful. And Horton expounds a profound and comforting truth for anyone who has ever faced death.

So when I learned that the folks at Amazon are keeping an online list of the most highlighted passages in Kindle books, I had to take a peek. If you make the assumption that book readers are thinking people, people who like to learn and who enjoy interacting with ideas, you can form some impressions about our current culture by seeing which books are most read and which ideas in those books are noteworthy to readers.
Which books are people reading? Some that come up often are Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell); The Last Lecture (Randy Pausch); The Shack (William Young); Cutting for Stone (Abraham Verghese); Eat, Pray, Love (Elizabeth Gilbert).

What are the profound thoughts that people are highlighting in these books, the thoughts that have gripped them as they read? Here's a sampling, and I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about the quality of the thought life of both today's writers and readers:

"Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good."—Malcolm Gladwell

"Life, too, is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward."—Abraham Verghese

 "'Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly.' She waited a moment, allowing her words to settle. 'And if left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place.'" –William Young

"If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires." –Malcolm Gladwell

"You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."—Elizabeth Gilbert



So what do you underline?