In his new book, Curiosity, Alberto Manguel explores, through the prism of his own experience and those of perennial favourites such as Dante, Plato and Montaigne, the privileged life of the thinker and the very human impulse to repeatedly ask the imaginative question “Why?” He writes, “curiosity is a means of declaring our allegiance to the human fold” and “seldom rewarded with meaningful or satisfying answers, but rather with an increased desire to ask more questions and the pleasure of conversing with others.” Indeed to be inquisitive about our social and political structures, to appraise our own beliefs and assumptions, and to engage in the thinking of those with whom we may not always if ever agree, are all hallmarks of a willingness to own and lean into our humanness, for better or for worse, as a subject worthy of scrutiny.
For writers such as Jeet Heer and Rick...
Dana Hansen, a writer, editor, and reviewer, teaches at Humber College in Toronto. She lives in Waterdown, Ontario, and is the editor in chief of Hamilton Review of Books.
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