 by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. It had been a long, exhausting day, frustrating, irritating, a day of people I didn't want to know, disliked on sight, and couldn't wait to see the back of them. Business can be like that, especially on a Friday afternoon in September, when anything, absolutely anything, seems more desirable than staying in one's office tending to customers who seem tailor-made by central casting to irk, exasperate, just the shake of a lamb's tail from disdain, contempt, loathing also being a distinct possibility. At last the time came when I could, with decency and well-honed precedent, withdraw... trusting that those following could take the job I was leaving with greater enthusiasm and higher spirits than I, just then, was able to muster. Just then, I didn't care. I was content, just then, to wallow in disgruntlement and high dudgeon. But though I didn't know it just then, my grumpy mood was about to change for the better, all because of an old friend I'd forgotten I had, a friend whose constructive powers were such that even had my funk been far mightier and tenacious than it was, my friend would have surmounted even that, with ease, grace, and total confidence for it and its kind had worked their magic so many times before and this day was poised to do it again. A book. This friend was a book, a book I had not thought of or recollected in any way these nearly 40 years, "Ottoline: The Life of Lady Ottoline Morrell". It was written by Sandra Jobson Darroch and published in 1976 in London by Chatto & Windus. I found it in a stack of books on the floor of my bedroom, a place with custom- made mahogany book shelves; ("Real Honduran mahogany, sir, just as you wanted".) They looked capacious enough when being crafted, but were quickly overrun by the thousands of books I retained after that jolting year when I donated over 12,000 volumes to charity, an act that at first touched my heart and then challenged my resolve to "prune", the better to keep what was "truly important". But as every book lover knows, every book no matter how ill-considered and poorly written, is truly important (at least to the author). For each book is a statement of significance (at least to the author), though admittedly some have distinctly less significance than others. This, of course, was the argument Ray Bradbury made in his 1953 classic dystopian novel "Fahrenheit 451". His book is set in a future American society where books are outlawed and "firemen" burn any that are found. The title refers to the temperature that Bradbury understood to be the autoignition point of paper. Book loving revolutionaries, unable to hide even the most important books from the regime which is determined to destroy each and every one of them, dedicate themselves to saving one book apiece, by memorizing its contents, continually reciting it over and over again. Thus they become that book, fiercely dedicated to their task of preserving its unique and crucial message, despite the difficulties of their task and the horrendous consequences if they are found out by a regime determined to extirpate, extinguish, exterminate and end once and for all every book, every book lover, and the progressive and humane thoughts which will continue to exist so long (but only so long) as the books containing them do so. Both sides in the struggle agreed on that, if nothing else. Composer Bernard Herrmann in his score for the film, caught the tension, the danger, the fateful commitment, the great risks run for humanity by those who knew that each book lost diminished human kind, whilst each book saved preserved not only that single volume but every thought, dream, aspiration of the author and the often lyric beauty of the language he used to express them. The stakes could hardly be higher; the very outcome of civilization hanging in the balance. Go to any search engine now and hear how brilliant Herrmann handles this challenge. The curtain opens, peace descends, a world has been awaiting me and I am soon immersed. Each day of my life, I try to read something that has absolutely nothing to do with business, making money, or expanding my empire at Worldprofit.com where the business of the day, every day, is helping Internet marketers worldwide profit online. That is important but as the old Yiddish proverb says, "A man who has nothing but money is a poor man." Thus when you come to visit me in Cambridge, you find a residence that is a tribute to man and his creative vistas, talents, and demonstrated abilities. Here the arts flourish and are celebrated, including the art and craft that produces the masterful bundles of words we know as books. Whatever room you are in, wherever your eye chances to look, you see books, here a single volume distinguished by the strawberry jam I was savoring while reading. There a tottering pile of volumes dedicated to the politics and culture of Central Europe. A thousand or two other tomes balance higglety-piggledy in my sanctum sanctorum; inviolate places near at hand for "the Holy Bible"' (King James version) and Shakespear's much thumbed and constantly consulted works, a task which always elevates and is never onerous or irksome, even when a quotation provokingly resides elsewhere from where it is doggedly sought and erroneously remembered. These books, the ample residue of my donative hecatomb, are each and every one a friend, whose opinions I seek, even when I disagree with them. It is unthinkable to dismiss them because of some divergent viewpoint. After all, they tolerate me when I cannot see my way to agreeing with them. Constructive, affectionate dialog is the essence of why we make and why we keep friends of any kind. So it should be here... Lady Ottoline, like cream rising. Moments away from exiting my imperial abode, short moments from selecting the vehicle that will take me up, up, and away, all is in readiness for my ascension. I have found the book, I have glanced at the cover, I am ready to see what the story of this eccentric, exquisite, extraordinary English aristocrat at the height of the empire on which the sun never set might do for me. And that turned out to be generous, glorious, as unexpected and perfect as the occasions she walked her pampered Pekinese dogs on ribbons tied to the shepherd's crook her ladyship carried like a magic wand, herself the chief sorceress of all. Once upon a time when I was a newly minted Harvard Ph.D. with modern English history my specialty, I was destined to write such books, one after another; each one so well researched and written publishers would make fools of themselves running after me to sign on the dotted line. There were, however, enormous changes at the last moment; I wrote books, 18 of them, books which made fortunes but did not provide the wherewithal for delicious gossip and polished literary vignettes over tea ("China, please") and strawberries and cream. No matter. In less time that it takes to write this line, I was back in the England that I have always loved, every character in the book an old and well-known friend... now rising off the page to sharp renewal in my memory where they, the author, and her unforgettable subject exist for me and bless me, reminding me of what is really important, and that includes every word I am reading now. In these lie the greater significance... and I am glad to be reminded. |
