by Tom Shafer
May 2, 2021
A faithful follower recently commented that I rarely mention what I am reading at any given time, and wanted to know what I am reading right now. And she’s right – I haven’t updated my reading list in quite some time and probably should do so.
Of course, I’ve already weighed in with my favorite books – and magazines (“This Teacher’s Fav Books — To Teach!” under the For Your Consideration tab). And, because of my unquenchably curious nature, what I am reading “at any given time” is as changeable as Ohio weather. My topics of interest range from fantasy and suspense to biographies and theoretical science, and everything in between.
I also tend to have open several books at one time. Like people who watch a variety of television programs, I do the same with books. Having a Kindle makes it very easy for me to slip back and forth between a mystery thriller by Michael Connelly and the unbelievable true story of the U.S.S. Indianapolis from WWII (In Harm’s Way by Doug Stanton). And yes, you can call me a sellout for maintaining a collection of books in my Kindle if you like – but I don’t care. I respect a reader’s love of caressing a leather-bound edition of Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years, but I enjoy the convenience of pressing a couple of buttons and changing from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles to Dr. Michio Kaku’s The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything – which happen to be two of the books I am reading right now.
I know some purists don’t like the idea of reading multiple books as I do, and insist on placing all of their attention on one at a time. I suppose I understand that and have occasionally completed one reading before moving on to another. But, because I am a human (?) with changeable moods, I find that right this very moment I might not want to delve into theoretical physics, so I’ll turn to Sherlock Holmes instead, but later, I might want to read Kaku’s take on string theory and parallel universes. It makes sense to me, but may not work for everybody.
As for the works about Sherlock Holmes, I have already read most of the novels and short stories (it has been many years), but I decided to read ALL of Doyle’s writings at one time (and a free download on my Kindle!). I had forgotten how good the writing is, and how Doyle so easily can transport me back to London and Western Europe of the 1880s. I even commented to a friend that I had never realized how many types of horse carriages existed in nineteenth century England, and that Doyle injects them into storylines like contemporary writers do with today’s myriad of automobiles, SUVs, and trucks.
And while I’m ruminating about Sherlock and Doyle, I need to touch on a couple of quotes I find interesting, both which need little explanation. The first one, where Holmes tells good friend and sounding board (and unintentional biographer) Dr. Watson, “Where there is no imagination there is no horror,” has often been recited by the master of horror himself, Stephen King. Of course, this is so true, and I have always marveled at the works of King, H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, and Peter Straub among others. Though I consider myself a fair purveyor of words, my imagination could never conjure the collection of “creatures” and scenarios that seem to spill easily from these writers.
The second quote, also directed at Watson, contemplates the power of music: “Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.” This we know is true. All we have to do is watch the reaction of newborns hearing music for the first time, their too-large heads turning to the sound, their uncontrollable limbs twitching involuntarily to the rhythm. Long before they can understand and formulate words, they already recognize and feel our first – and most universal – language.
Well, I was going to bring this page to an end, but another lengthier quote by Doyle just would not allow it. Early in his relationship with Sherlock, Watson is continually astounded by his new friend’s gifts, his almost supernatural powers of observation, his uncanny capacity to reason through the most complex situations and problems: “You see,” Holmes explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with lots of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent.”
So, which are you, the “fool” or the “skillful workman”? I don’t think any of us make a conscious decision about this early in life – or perhaps even later. But over my many years, I now recognize that most people seem to fall into one of these two categories. I have always been the fool, right from the start (and many of my friends will testify to that!). I was a scholastic sponge, absorbing knowledge about anything and everything, so much so that I begged for – and received – a full set of encyclopedias on my ninth birthday. And though not much of a sentimentalist, I hung onto that very outdated full set until I sold my parents’ home in 2014, then somewhat grudgingly allowing them to move on to more fertile educational ground (as opposed to the packing boxes they had been “learning up” for the last three decades).
I have always admired the “skillful workman” and sometimes wish I had been more decisive in my information selection. I appreciate the knowledge and workmanship of motorheads and can converse in some of their vernacular – but just enough to make me dangerous. And I love cool architecture when I see it, but I’m pretty sure that I could not differentiate a cupola from a belvedere – unless that Belvedere had a Mr. in front of it and was a sitcom parked in the middle of the 1980s.
But my erudition ship has sailed, and here I sit before you with a vast assemblage of mostly useless knowledge. In fact, when I received my post-graduate degree, a good friend (and then assistant superintendent) even recognized my achievement in our district’s monthly newsletter, The Scuttlebutt:
I suppose that says it all right there.
