When I was in high school, one day the teacher told us that the German philosopher Hegel had "read everything". Silence fell on the class. After we students exchanged a few incredulous looks between us, someone raised her hand and asked him "What do you mean everything?", to which the teacher replied "He had read everything there was to read at the time.” Of course we thought that the whole thing was preposterous.
Quick digression. That teacher loved philosophy. (He had a degree in philosophy.) And as far as he was concerned, throughout human history there were only two philosophers worthy of the name: Socrates and Hegel. That's it. No one else. Sweeping statements like that one are usually unfair but quite amusing. Another one that I like is what some physicists like to say, half-jokingly: "The only true science is physics. Everything else is stamp-collecting."
The problem with reading (in fact the problem with pretty much everything) is that, while you're doing that, you're not doing anything else. That's a rather obvious statement, but it's worth reflecting on it for a moment.
Years ago I read an interview with a famous Italian novelist. He said that he would often meet people who wanted to meet him and congratulate him on his work. He would ask them:
- Which book of mine have you read?
- Oh, none of them. I don't have time to read.
- Then how do you know about me?
- I heard about you on TV.
Being a gentleman he would leave it there, but what he would be thinking was "You say you don't have time to read, and yet you seem to have time to watch TV."
It's all about priorities, of course. We all have an X amount of free time. It's just a question of what we do with it. It's ok if some people prefer watching TV, I watch TV myself, but you should just be honest about it. Human beings need something to keep them occupied, whatever that may be. Anything but boredom.
(People who have been to prison will tell you that solitary confinement is the worst. When you have nothing to do, and nothing to look at, and no one to talk to, and nothing to listen to, it drives people crazy. It's torture.)
I personally love books. Not just reading them, I love them as objects. In fact, there's something slightly disturbing about the way I enjoy opening a new book, bury my face in it and, with my eyes closed, take a deep whiff. Aaahhh...
Because of all that, I end up buying more books than I can keep up with, with the result that they keep piling up. The Japanese have a word for it: tsundoku, which means buying books and not reading them.
The most sensible thing to do would be to stop buying books, but that ain’t gonna happen. Another option would be to try to catch up by reading more. There are two problems with that.
First of all, I have other things to do. But also, I cannot read for more than a couple of hours. After a while I get restless. My wife can.
She will sit on the couch, perfectly still, and read for six hours straight without moving a single muscle. It’s uncanny. Every now and then I have to place a small mirror under her nostrils to look for signs of condensation, to see if she’s still breathing.
I’ve been thinking that perhaps audiobooks would speed things up. Perhaps I could listen for longer than I can read. But is listening to audiobooks cheating? Is it an easy shortcut for lazy people?
I used to think that. But then I learned that Stephen Fry listens to audiobooks all the time. He goes for long walks in the country (he has a house in Norfolk) with his earphones. If audiobooks are good enough for Stephen Fry, they’re good enough for me.
(If I ever spot him walking in Cambridge or in London, I’m just going to run up to him and hug him really hard. And then, once I get the restraining order from the judge, I’m going to frame it, hang it on a wall and stare at it with dreamy eyes.)
There's something vaguely melancholic about unread books. Sometimes I like to personalise objects, and I imagine that books just want to be read. If you never read them, would the books be sad? Do they feel neglected, gathering dust?
I also like to reflect on the effect books have on people. I don’t know if they make you smarter, but they certainly make you more knowledgeable, and I believe that the pursuit of knowledge is always worthwhile. Let's take the philosopher's stone, for example.
For centuries, alchemists have tried to transform base, inexpensive metals into gold. A stupendously futile enterprise given that gold, being an element, is found in nature and cannot be manufactured. On the face of it, a complete waste of time.
However, the whole thing was a metaphor. The base metal is the ignorant man who, after years of study and research, transforms himself into a cultured, enlightened being, represented by gold. While those men laboured for years over their vials and beakers, a transformation did take place, but within themselves.
Does that mean that there's almost a moral duty to pursue knowledge? The poet Dante certainly thought so:
You weren't made to live like mindless brutes
But to pursue virtue and knowledge.
(Inferno, XXVI)
If anything, at the very least loving books means that you'll never be bored. (Of course there are plenty of boring books out there, but you know what I mean.) And on that point, I'll leave you with a quote by the great Groucho Marx:
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it is too dark to read."
