'I still remember one birthday present, my all time favorite. I must have been twelve or so. My father had taken me to the Jamaica branch of the New York Public Library, and I had checked out a book containing all sixty of the Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels. I read it with delight and the next December, ... I got my very own copy. It was fat and stubby with a red cover, and I adored it. I read it over and over until I knew the stories almost by heart ... The fascinating thing about the Holmes stories is how non-violent they are. Indeed, there are even stories in which no actual crime is committed. Quite different from the modern genre, in which it seems murders pop up every few pages.
'I even joined "The Baker Street Irregulars" when it was formed in 1946, an organization of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts, among whom were numbered some distinguished literary figures of the Thirties and Forties. Four times a year I received the Baker Street Journal, filled with faux scholarly articles on Holmesian minutiae. Like all religious cults, the Irregulars were organized around a founding myth, in this case the shared pretense that Holmes was real.
'My grandson, Samuel suffers from the same affliction. ... Samuel has expressed an interest in Philosophy [he has just turned thirteen], and last year, I gave him an autographed copy of In Defense of Anarchism, so that years from now, perhaps after I have died, he will know who his grandfather was. This year I gave him a copy of Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy....
'Russell’s History was the first serious book of philosophy I read. I think I was fourteen or fifteen. I had read Irwin Edman’s two chatty books, Philosopher’s Holiday and Philosopher’s Quest, but I did not consider either of them very serious. It was a trifle startling many years later to join the Columbia Philosophy Department and discover that Edman had been a member. After reading Russell’s History I read his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy when I was fifteen or so, not too long before going to Harvard and launching my college education with W. V. O. Quine’s logic course...'
Some months ago he wrote:
'Adding to the tumult in my life is a new rescue cat whom we acquired three weeks ago. She is charming and playful but still too scared to let us hold her, although last night, after we turned the lights off, she hopped up on the bed and – as I lay very quietly – peered at us soulfully before hopping back down. Progress.
'Here is a picture.'
Wolff identifies himself as a Marxist. He does not appreciate the bloodshed such a view necessitates. Cats can be black and white, not so reality. Human nature is not just epiphenomenal. But Wolff is such a great writer, you just want him to keep going.
No comments:
Post a Comment