A few weeks ago, I finished reading a tremendous book. I rarely, almost never, take the pleasure of reading something just because it is interesting, because I always feel like I should be “doing research.” This isn’t all bad, because I find my own discipline fascinating, and I love teaching and writing. It isn’t like I’m slogging through Calculus books–which I’m sure someone else also loves, good for them.
And, if I am completely honest, although I picked this book up as pleasure reading, I did in fact pick it up out of a stack of books I’ve collected to do research on a project (more on that later); but the point is, I started reading it with no pressure at all, no deadline, no motive. That’s what has been rare. But I digress.
Picture from Amazon.com
The book is called Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler, and it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. On the surface it is a wonderful account of a present-day nutty museum in Los Angeles called the Museum of Jurassic Technology that has a post-postmodernist semi-serious, semi-ironic presentation of bizzare and unusual objects in the same tradition–or perhaps mocking the tradition–of renaissance wunderkammerns and our American version, Ripley’s Believe it or Not museums.
The weirdness of the Museum of Jurassic Technology does its job on Weschler, igniting a sense of wonder that crosses over into obsession, and the book takes you with him in a truthful and vulnerable way as he shares the experience of being unsure about the museum (is it a hoax? is it a postmodern joke? Performance art?) while at the same time genuinely touched with childlike fascination. As I mentioned, Weschler is a bona fide member of the literati; as his bio succinctly puts it, “He has taught, variously, at Princeton, Columbia, UCSC, Bard, Vassar, NYU, and Sarah Lawrence,” so the reader is in good hands as he walks swings methodically between irony and sincerity; in the end, you are left without a verdict, feeling like you must go to Santa Monica to make a decision for yourself.
I cannot wait until my next trip to LA so I can visit the MJT (or for that matter, the next time I’m near one of those ubiquitous Ripley’s joints). But the book is much more than a simple story of this museum. Weschler deftly turns his skeptical but authentic look at the MJT into an investigation of the characteristics of skepticism and its opposite, wonder. I connected with this topic early on in the book; the sense of wonder has been on my mind for a while, as it comes up often in conversations about good teaching, and, surprisingly, in conversations about falling, and being, in love (a recurring conversation around our house).
I am thinking more about this concept of wonder, now, and how it relates to engaging students. In particular, I think it is the sense of wonder and excitement to explore that is the core concept of the Art Literacy class that I have been teaching. I’m looking for some feedback on this idea, my academic and artistic friends. Do you have thoughts on “wonder?” What do you think about it in the context of museums? When and where do you feel wonder, and how different do you think you are on this from, say, the average 18-year old?
Discussion
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