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Thursday, December 08, 2005
Miriam’s Hrair Limit; or, How to Shelve Intelligently to Feel More Intelligent
Miriam J. shared her edifying despair with Valve readers yesterday. I have had enough despair of late (and face the possibility of more tomorrow). So tonight I offer hope. But first a pinch of despair:
I read on average 50 pages per hour. That’s around a book a day (life will intervene), 365 a year. If I squeeze out another 40 years, that’s a mere 14,600 books, which simply will not do. For every classic you haven’t read and should, there are at least five new books you’ll want to read as well.
So says LA Times staff writer Susan Salter Reynolds. To which Miriam responds:
My mortality is never closer than when I make the mistake of thinking too clearly about the ratio of the ever-burgeoning number of books in the world, to the sliver of books I have read or am yet likely to read.
Miriam has a problem. She is unable to imagine how large a number 14,600 is. That’s not surprising. Not because I think Miriam deficient, mind you, but because we all have our hrair limits
Some people can juggle five balls but not six. When someone tosses him a sixth, they all inevitably hit the floor. Other people can juggle six but not seven . . . you see where this is headed. Now consider Miriam’s desperation. She will only read 14,600 hundred more books in her life. That statement is approximately 2085 times her hrair limit. She would need 2085 other brains to be able to wrap her mind around her absurd fear of not reading enough.
Doesn’t everyone feel better already?
To strike a more serious note: this anxiety can be overcome by dispensing with the "to read" shelf and creating a "have read" shelf in its place. You will be amazed daily by how much you have read instead of despairing over how much you haven’t. The sense of self-satisfaction such a shelf creates positively intoxicates.
Comments
But Scott, Reynolds is figuring on another 40 years of active reading. That would be great but not guaranteed (I may be a wee bit older than her). She is also working with a book a day, which is nowhere near my average during term. So 14,600 is a wildly optimistic estimate. 7,300 may be closer to my situation. Not such a big number, is it? No, it’s a damn small number!
Though my hrair limit is around three, I think.
Mine’s BB(6).
But Miriam, if you’re hrair limit’s three, then you’ll still need to 2,343.33 brains to wrap your mind around the 7,300 books you’ve left to read. That, to be frank, should make your soul sing.
As I mentioned on Miriam’s site, sometimes I find myself thinking that I can perhaps at least read a majority of the worthwhile SF and fantasy, even if most literature passes me by. There’s a site that seems fairly complete for works in English that says that there are only about 4400 SF and fantasy authors who have published anything, ever. In the rare occasions when similar thoughts occur, I sometimes will go to this site and do a little recreational sneering—picking out the authors who have ever written a commercial series book, say, and mentally crossing them off the list of people whose works I ever might read. In this rather dubious way the number of books to read appears to get smaller even if I’m not doing anything.
To strike a more serious note: this anxiety can be overcome by dispensing with the “to read” shelf and creating a “have read” shelf in its place. You will be amazed daily by how much you have read instead of despairing over how much you haven’t.
Reminds me of something I heard (and I wish I could remember where, to credit it) of the only sensible way to play the lottery. You buy the ticket, take it home, and shred it. Given the overwhelming odds, it is a near certainty that when the winner is drawn, you will experience the flush of relief and satisfaction that you didn’t destroy a life of luxury, rather than the repeated disappointment of another dollar down the drain.
What a coincidence! I wrote on my blog just last night about “have read” lists:
I don’t compile reading lists like I used to. Now I just write down a book title here or there or check it out of the library and keep renewing it until I can find the time to read it. But I still make lists. They’re “books I’ve already read” lists, which are real and definite.
"And keep renewing it”!? the theorist, as someone whose preferred mode of education has always been shelf-browsing, I challenge you to pistols at dawn. (On the commons, of course.)
At some point in middle age, my unread-book anxiety dissipated (much like the boy-o himself). I think it’s when I realized that re-reading was too important to bear such constant interference, and I think it was a natural next tumble down the slippery slope which began around puberty when I stopped speed-reading mysteries and science books and began slow-reading Shakespeare.
I’m with Ray, both chronologically and sentiment-wise. Besides, Flaubert had it right:
“Comme l’on serait savant, si l’on connaissait bien seulement cinq á six livres!”
“How wise one would be, if one only knew some half dozen books well!”
(http://www.univ-rouen.fr/flaubert/03corres/conard/lettres/53b.html)
You are probably better off reading 14,600 different books rather than 7 books 2085 times each. For one thing, you might pick the wrong 7 books.
Great thread! I’m fascinated for a couple of reasons… One: I, too, am frustrated that no matter how hard I try I’ll never learn everything. (It’s what led me to write my book, “A Philistine’s Journal, an Average Guy Tackles the Classics").Doesn’t stop a brother from trying, but still…
Secondly, the Hrair limit has suddenly appeared as a topic on several of my podcasts. The Cranky Middle Manager Show (http://www.thepodcastnetwork.com/cmm) is for managers and those who love them. Particularly in show #28, a very smart man, Charlie Bess from EDS, talked about the Hrair Limit in terms of managers getting their mitts around technology at work.
Thanks for posting everyone!
If I may humbly offer a solution here:
Poetry! Does any one read it anymore? Why gorge yourself on 14,600 books when you can be nourished by a single sentence? What would Ezra Pound say? I bet he’d say, “why are you bothering me?” Too true, Ezra, too true.