Corliss wondered what happens to a book that sits unread on a library shelf for thirty years. Can a book rightfully be called a book if it never gets read? If a tree falls in a forest and gets pulped to make paper for a book that never gets read, but there's nobody there to read it, does it make a sound?
Interpretation
The quote explores the value of written works and the importance of readership in giving meaning to literature.
Sherman Alexie's quote reflects on the existential question of whether a book holds value if it remains unread. By comparing a book to a tree that falls without an audience, it suggests that the essence and purpose of literature are realized through engagement and connection with readers. This contemplation on the nature of existence raises deeper philosophical questions about the significance of art and creation.
In practice
During a book discussion club, one might say, 'As Sherman Alexie pondered, what is the worth of a book if it remains unread?'
Gordie, the white boy genius, gave me this book by a Russian dude named Tolstoy, who wrote, 'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Well, I hate to argue with a Russian genius, but Tolstoy didn't know Indians, and he didn't know that all Indian families are unhappy for the same exact reasons: the frikkin' booze.
My wife was the first romantic partner who understood both American and native parts of me - not so much the positive stuff, but the damage.
I draw because words are too unpredictable. I draw because words are too limited. If you speak and write in English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or any other language, then only a certain percentage of human beings will get your meaning. But when you draw a picture everybody can understand it. If I draw a cartoon of a flower, then every man, woman, and child in the world can look at it and say, "That's a flower.
We all have to find our own ways to say good-bye.
I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don't write to protect them. It's far too late for that. I write to give them weapons-in the form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.
A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. (young adult). is the Garden of Eden of literature.
The ingredients of both darkness and light are equally present in all of us,...The madness of this planet is largely a result of the human being's difficulty in coming to viruous balance with himself.
How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem empty.
There are the stars--doing their old, old crisscross journeys in the sky. Scholars haven't settled the matter yet, but they seem to think there are no living beings out there. Just chalk... or fire. Only this one is straining away, straining away all the time to make something of itself. Strain's so bad that every sixteen hours everybody lies down and gets a rest.
Life is a symphony, and the action of every person in this life is the playing of his particular part in the music.
The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine.
He that gives quickly gives twice.
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