Re-enchanting reading

The practice of reading is not what it once was. In this age of information, adults in the United States read fewer books with each passing year, and for many, reading has become synonymous with the dry and boring—a far cry from the wonder of childhood reading.

Might our best hope for restoring a culture of reading lie centuries in the past? That’s the case theologian and medievalist Craig Tichelkamp makes in The Mystified Letter, a retrieval project that puts contemporary reading in conversation with historic reading practices. Tichelkamp, who teaches at Harvard Divinity School and Stonehill College, dives into the rich history of the medieval Abbey of St. Victor, where monks developed a school of mystical theology that placed a spotlight on reading as a spiritual practice. Learning from the Victorines, Tichelkamp argues, can help us to “reenchant” our own approach to reading.

Despite his turn to the past, Tichelkamp is no traditionalist. The book makes a case for a relationship with history that takes history’s wisdom seriously but without being starry-­eyed with nostalgia. The first chapter explains Tichelkamp’s approach, which follows in the footsteps of 20th-century ressourcement theologians like Henri de Lubac. We ought to turn to the past not to idealize it, says Tichelkamp, but “for spiritual transformation in and beyond the present.” And in the Abbey of St. Victor, he finds much that is transformative.