While writing my post on Atlas Shrugged a week or so ago, I came upon an essay of last year by Rachel Donadio in the New York Times. She writes of a particular phenomenon among the bookish—and dating—set in Manhattan. Apparently, if you’re looking for love in certain precincts, you’d better choose your reading materials with all due discretion. So John Galt said he’d stop the motor of the world, eh? Well, we’ll see who gets his motor stopped, Buster.
I must concede that Donadio’s friend at Salon had a point: The books you read do say a lot about you, and I’ll admit that if I catch you reading a book by, say, Mitch Albom, for me that’s the canary in the coal mine. But my guess is that, as a rule, you can no more reliably judge a person’s quality of character by the books she’s read than you can judge an author’s by the books she’s written.
This brings to mind a song. Listen to Harriet Wheeler of the Sundays singing “Here’s Where the Story Ends,” in which she recalls with some regret judging a guy by what he reads:
It’s that little souvenir of a terrible year
Which makes my eyes feel sore –
Oh, I never should have said, the books that you read
Were all I loved you for.
That was some hard-won wisdom, I’ll bet.
(The illustration, by Peter Arkle, appeared with Rachel Donadio’s article in the New York Times.)
Ted the Cat (1994-present) is a domestic shorthair blogger and vers libre poet. He also enjoys sleeping, eating, and lurking. Ted the Cat co-habits with Kaze,
also a blogger at 317am.net.
