…and the Rise of Simpleton Wisdom, a fascinating article by Heather Havrilesky for Slate Magazine:
If you’re like me and were a child of the 1970’s, Richard Bach’s novel Jonathan Livingstone Seagull was one of those books that seemed to be everywhere. I remember seeing it in drug stores, libraries, bookstores (where it was very prominently featured), left behind at bus stops or schools, etc. etc.
I tried reading it way back when but found the whole thing rather…silly. I mean, a book about a seagull that somehow finds its Nirvana? To this day it fascinates me what people react to and make a big part of their culture, and Ms. Havrilesky astutely points out why this book may have become as popular as it was, a revelation to me (I never cared enough about the book, despite its popularity, to find out the why’s related to the same).
By the way, so popular was the book that they made a movie out of it (it bombed). The movie featured the music of Neil Diamond.
Oh yeah…
…oh my….