What Lasts

Jonathan Carroll
Jonathan Carroll
Published in
2 min readMar 5, 2015

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A while ago I was reminded again of the great, long lasting power of books. It was a very heartening experience. The school where I taught for many years was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. Lots of gatherings, parties, memories galore that weekend as the alumni tribes from days past assembled.

Although I haven’t been in a classroom for years, I went to one of these events and talked for hours with old students. Again and again they said things like, “I’ll never forget that book we read in 10th grade,” or “Reading ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE in your class changed everything for me,” or “ CRIME AND PUNISHMENT was the best book I’ve ever read. I’ve re-read it three times since then and always gotten something new from it,” or “THE GREAT GATSBY introduced me to…” Many years have passed and these people have almost all grown up into interesting varied lives. But so many of them made the same eager point that night— how this or that book influenced them hugely both now or in the past.

As a writer, it’s easy to forget sometimes how deep our stories can go, how far they travel, how much meaning they take on in distant hearts thousands of days after you have dotted the last ‘i’ in the work.

This article was originally posted on jonathancarroll.com

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