The Year of Blogging Dangerously

Back to Reality.

A few months back, this blog had its Five Year Anniversary.  During those five years Your Humble Narrator has realized there are two virtues to having an intermittent blog which Nobody reads:

1) When life intrudes, the blog can go on an unplanned hiatus, which theoretically means that Nobody will notice since Nobody is reading the blog, but oddly in reality means getting occasional complaints from said Nonexistent Readers objecting to the hiatus. 

2) When Life stops getting in the Way, the blog can just as easily be resumed without the need for fanfare or concern that the nonexistent Readers will be unaware of its return.

[I learned something about my Work Life in the Fall, by the way.  For unexplainable reasons, Mount Holyoke paid me to teach an extra course in the fall, so I ended up teaching four days a week (instead of two).  About a month into the semester I noticed that I was not getting to all sorts of things I normally do during the semester.  It was then I realized that my Work Life is divided between Teaching Days and Non-teaching Days.  I thought my choice of clothing was the only thing reliably affected by whether I was teaching on a particular day or not, but it turns out I have all sorts of fairly routine things I unconsciously just relegated to non-teaching days.  With only one non-teaching day a week, those things were not getting done.  I was a bit surprised that I did not know this about my Work Life; I mean I knew I did things on my non-teaching days, but I did not know I unconsciously put off things until a day I wasn't teaching.  Anyway, this blog was a non-teaching day thing.  Fear not: nonexistent Reader, the Spring has a return to a normal teaching schedule.]

It is a bit surprising to think this blog has existed for five years.  Truly.  As was noted at the time, it started on Lark.  I made a promise to myself when I started it:  I would never tell anyone about or suggest that someone should read it.  Five years later, I have kept that promise with one minor exception—I have told my children they should read this or that post because it would be good for them.  Then again, I know they will ignore me, so it is kind of like telling a wall it should read a blog post.

Andy Miller also once had a blog.  He stopped his.  He noted that only a fool writes without being paid for it.  So, instead of a blog, he wrote a book.  Janet gave it to me for Christmas:

The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (And Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life

It is a Gimmick Book at its heart, but there isn't really a Gimmick.  Miller read 51 books.  (Yeah, it sure sounds like he read 52 from the title, but apparently, Miler thought it was a Grand Joke to note at the end of the book that he only read one Not-So-Great Book. Imagine hilarious peals of laughter when the joke is revealed.  You have to imagine them, because nobody would actually laugh at the joke.)  So, Miller read 51 books.  The not-so great one is The Da Vinci Code.  The 50 great books range from genuine Great Books to books that Miller thought he might like to read but of which nobody else has ever heard and nobody else would ever actually get around to reading (here’s lookin’ at you Krautrocksampler).  And, as long as we are on the subtitle, “saved my life” means “rescued me from being bored just living with my wife and kid and having a job.”  And, as long as we are the subject, the “danger” mentioned in the title is the danger of realizing that maybe reading books is something worth doing.  So, the real Title of the book should be:

Andy Miller Read 51 books and then Wrote Ruminations about his Life which Sometimes Mention the Books being Read and then Instead of Putting Said Ruminations in a Blog and Letting People Read them for Free, He Bound his Thoughts and Sold it to People so he can get Royalty Checks.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not complaining.  I fully support authors getting royalty checks.  I also enjoyed Miller’s book.  It is, truth be told, the closest thing to this here blog I have ever read.  Miller can be amusing at times.  He writes well-enough.  But, I would no more recommend Miller’s book to anyone than I would recommend this blog to anyone.  Like I said, though, don’t get me wrong.  Miller has not written a bad book.  I read it; I enjoyed it; I remember almost nothing that was in it.  I daresay that my experience would be typical.  I suspect many other people would enjoy it but I would be fascinated to know if anyone can actually remember this book a week after reading it.  There wasn't a single moment in the book when I though “I should read (or reread) the book Miller is ostensibly discussing.”  There wasn't a single joke which I can remember now other that the non-joke about the title.  I read this book less than a week ago, and it is gone from the memory.  I think we need a new book genre.  Since this isn’t really a Gimmick book because there isn’t really a gimmick, I hereby dub it a Cotton Candy Book: sweet, non-substantial, and ephemeral.  (Speaking of which, does anyone really like Cotton Candy?  I even hated it when I was a wee lad.)

It sure would be nice to say something substantive in this here blog post.  So, I will flip though the book to see what turns up.

(Please hold; the author will return soon.  In the meantime, here is some elevator music which can amuse you while you wait.)

Back now.  I looked over the appendix with the list of books he read, and I remembered a few things:

1. Miller read Dickens’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which was unfinished when Dickens died.  I have never even been tempted to read that book.  Is it really any good?  It seems like it would be terribly unsatisfying to read an unfinished mystery.

2. He read a collection of the Silver Surfer comic books as one of his Fifty Great Books.  I was torn between feeling 1) glad someone put a comic book in a book about reading Great Books and 2) disappointed that the Silver Surfer was the book being elevated to that status, especially since as Miller noted, it was not exactly a great comic book.

3. I did not appreciate the summary dismissal of Wodehouse as if Wodehouse was just some lightweight humorist.  Really Miller; read better.

OK, even I am bored with random notes on a Cotton Candy Book.  Ah, but fortunately, I need not worry about complaints from Readers: after all, you get what you pay for.