Independent reader · Session 1 of 5
A Secondary City
Ecclesiastes 12:9-14
What happens when talk about a work replaces meeting the work
Book reading
Part 1: A Secondary City (printed pp. 1-50)
Picture two ways to spend an evening with a great poem. In one, you read the poem. In the other, you read three articles about the poem and a summary of what experts say it means. Steiner's concern in Part 1 is that our culture has drifted toward the second evening. In his telling, commentary, criticism and journalism have taken command, and they insulate readers from the immediacy that works of art, music and literature demand. He also says the prevailing mood mistakes what is interesting for what is significant, and that beauty and terror get used up in a daily news cycle. His alternative is a culture devoted to making and performing primary works: a concert, a reading, a direct meeting with a painting or poem, even if the people doing it are amateurs.
Steiner writes as a literary and philosophical critic, so this is a cultural argument, not a sermon. Treat him as a conversation partner and test him against Scripture. Ecclesiastes 12:9-14 is a good place to do that, because it is itself a reflection on words and books.
Start with the Preacher's craft. He taught the people knowledge, "weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care." He is no enemy of careful study. He also "sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth." Delight and truth sit side by side.
Then comes the image that matters most for Steiner's complaint. "The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd." A goad is a pointed stick that moves an animal along. A nail holds something in place. These are words that do something to you. You cannot stand back and admire them from a safe distance. That is close to the immediacy Steiner fears we are losing. Notice too that the words come from one Shepherd: a person who leads, not just a library.
Verse 12 adds a warning: "Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh." This is not a ban on books or on help. In Nehemiah 8:8 the Levites explained the reading so the people understood it, and that was a good thing. The warning is about endless words about words, which can wear us out without ever bringing us to anything.
So the Preacher's ending is worth noticing: "The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." The book does not close with another round of commentary. It closes by sending the reader toward a response. Here is where the two voices part ways. Steiner asks for a direct meeting with art. Ecclesiastes asks for a direct meeting with God's words that ends in reverence and obedience, with every deed answerable to him.
As you read Part 1, ask where your own habits sit. Where do you read about things instead of reading them?
Key idea
Steiner warns that commentary can crowd out direct encounter with a work; Ecclesiastes honors careful study but says good words are goads and nails that act on the reader and lead to fearing God, not to endless talk about words.
Questions to consider
- Steiner says commentary and the news cycle can insulate us from the immediacy of a work. Where have you noticed this in your own reading, listening or watching?
- The Preacher calls wise words goads and nails. When has a piece of Scripture or other writing prodded or fastened itself to you, and what did you do with it?
Journal prompt
Think of one text, poem or piece of music you know mostly through other people's opinions. What would it cost you to meet it directly, and what might you gain?
Practice
1. Choose one primary text, poem or piece of music. 2. Give it 20 uninterrupted minutes with no commentary, notes or reviews. 3. Afterward, write five sentences on what it demanded of you.