Last week Joseph Marshall of A Straight Shot of Politics invited me to play in what some have called a meme but I think is more correctly described as a game. It’s taken me a while to formulate my thoughts (as ever) but I’m ready to play now.
You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book would you want to be?
It’s been nearly 45 years since I’ve read Ray Bradbury’s rather prescient Fahrenheit 451 and I’ve never seen the movie. The world it describes seems to be not unlike our own. Ironically, more books are printed, published, and read today than at any time in history. Most are frivolous. Ah well, there’s a place for that.
I’ve never understood this question. I take the desire for survival as a given so if the point-of-view is that of the book, my guess is that the book most likely to survive would be the instruction manual for the fire-starting equipment.
That’s probably not the intent of the question. I assume that we’re taking the point-of-view of one of the Intellectuals and that I’m being asked to name a book I consider pre-eminently worthy of preservation (by memorizing).
There’s no doubt in my mind which one to pick: The Oxford Book of English Verse. If that’s considered cheating, let me think. I’ll leave the many great works in languages other than English for native speakers of those languages. Dante’s Purgatorio, the second book of the Divina Commedia—by far my favorite (I may be the only one in the world). In Purgatorio the souls continue to care and they bear up under their burdens as best they can. It’s like here.
Or Eugene Onegin, Pushkin’s marvelous novel in verse.
In English I think I’d want Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. I read it annually as it is and I’ve mostly got it committed to memory already.
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
No, I’ve always been backward that way. I didn’t have any crushes until I was 16 or 17 and those were always on real girls. My college crush, for example, is now the editor of the Washington Post’s Book World. She married the first guy she met on campus (I was the second) and, alas, we were never more than good, good friends.
We’d have to go back somewhat farther then to when I was, say, 12. The closest I’ve ever had to a crush on a fictional character would have to be either Jane Porter or the incomparable Dejah Thoris. Not the Jane of Tarzan of the Apes, though, and certainly not the Jane of the movies but the Jane of, say, Tarzan the Terrible: beautiful, accomplished, and tough as nails.
What was the last book you bought?
James C. Bennett’s The Anglosphere Challenge. I’m a spurt reader and I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.
What was the last book you read?
Thomas P. M. Barnett’s The Pentagon’s New Map.
What are you currently reading?
It’s not uncommon for me to read several books concurrently. Right now I’m in the middle of Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (I read it aloud to my wife when we’re on long driving trips—she drives), and Volume II of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.
What five books would you take to a desert island?
Well, yes, I would take the Bible. For practical use I’d probably take The Boy Mechanic, Volume III. There isn’t much you’d want to know about the outdoors that isn’t there. Joseph Marshall’s “Fahrenheit 451” pick: The Book of Genji would be a good pick. I’ve never read it, I’ve always meant to, and it’s quite long. Sir Richard Francis Burton’s translation of The Thousand Nights and a Night (yes, that’s cheating but I don’t care). And, for my last pick, I’d take my “Fahrenheit 451” pick: The Oxford Book of English Verse.
Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
Well, my first pick would be Dean but I think he’s already played. I think I’ll pass the stick to Joe Gandelman, Marc Schulman, and Callimachus. They’re all blogfriends, they might play along, and I’d like to know them all better.
