The next book up on the pile of books awaiting review has me in a bit of a quandary. I am stuck. I stare at the book. I stare out the window (it’s really nice out there—well, technically it is freezing cold—seriously sub-zero type of weather—but since I am inside and thus immune to the temperature, I just notice the crisp blue sky and the snow and ice covering the green and I think it is nice outside, which raises an interesting question of whether to be nice outside it must be nice when one is located outside or when one is looking at the outside. Does being nice outside mean having to be located outside when making that appraisal? If so, does saying that a painting is nice mean having to be located in the painting? Yeah, I am stalling to avoid the aforementioned quandary.). I realized some music might help solve the quandary. So The Kinks are now playing. I have no idea why I thought The Kinks were the most appropriate music to solve my quandary. They aren’t helping. (Yeah, I am still stalling.)
Here is the quandary.
I have this book, see. I want to
launch off on a written exploration of the book and see what comes of it. That is the method of this here blog, after
all. But, the book in question has two launching
points. I don’t know which will be the
more interesting launching point. I don’t
really want to write two blog posts about this book. So, which one should I choose to commence
this rumination?
I have of course added a further complication. There is now a third way to start this blog
post. See the previous two paragraphs. Egads.
At this rate, I will be living in a Borgesian universe. Now, Borges is not the author of the book in
question. But Borges is sitting in the list
of books to be reviewed. Which now leads
to a fourth possibility. The blog post
now being written could just be converted into a review of a different book than
the book which started this whole problem.
Ah, but to switch books will just mean recreating the current problem at
a future date.
The foregoing is a perfect example of why it is a good thing
that Nobody reads this blog.
There’s one thing you gotta do/ to make me still want you/ gotta
stop sobbing now. Wow! The Kinks come to the rescue.
Here are two alternate first paragraphs. Deciding which to read is left as an exercise
for the Reader.
First paragraph 1
As I have
presumably noted in this space before, I am always simultaneously in the midst
of multiple books. I like to read (shocking,
to be sure), but I also like variety in my reading, so by meandering through multiple
books at a time, there is always some book which will strike my fancy at any
given moment. In normal times, the books
being read are sufficiently different that they feel non-overlapping. But, I just had a very odd experience. While reading Mark Edmundson’s Why Teach? A nonfiction book about the plight
of higher education which my wife gave for Christmas, I was also reading Julie
Schumacher’s Dear Committee Members a
novel which was given to me by one of my former students (Thanks, Meggie!). Multiple times while reading one or the
other, I forgot which book I was reading.
Dear Committee Members is a
series of letters written by a cantankerous old professor. Why
Teach? is a series of essays written by a cantankerous old professor. Multiple times I connected some comment on
one book to a comment in the other book and then had the shock of remembering
that the two comments were written by different people. If I didn’t know better, I would have suspected
that Julie Shumacher and Mark Edmundson are the same person. Come to think of it: Has anyone ever seen
both of them at the same time in the same place?
First paragraph 2
Being a
professor is normally a joy-filled occupation.
I love my job. I love almost everything
about my job. Except grading. I hate grading. It is tedious and dull and boring. The only other thing that even rivals grading
in tedium is writing letters of recommendation.
(And let me hasten to add to Readers who have in the past asked or will
in the future ask for a letter of recommendation that the thing I don’t like is
writing letters of recommendation for other
people. I love writing letters of recommendation
for you. Love it.
It brings me great joy. It is fun
to recommend you. It is the letters for those other people which
are boring. Really.) The problem with letters of recommendation is
that most of them are so routine and pointless.
The letters for graduate school aren’t too bad—at least they
matter. Some students have even done something
distinct enough that there is actually something to say in a letter, and those
letters aren’t too bad to write. But, the
bulk of letters of recommendation are pointless—nobody really cares what they
say; the whole point is just to raise the cost of applying to make sure the applicant
is serious. After all, if nobody will write
a letter for you, then you probably aren’t very good. So, the existence of the letter is all that
matters; the content of the letter is irrelevant. There are tons of letters I have to write to
this or that office at Mount Holyoke. Those
are always really idiotic. I have been
on committees where I had to read the letters of recommendation for internal
awards—I skipped them all. They are really
lame. “So and so was in my class and was
really smart and should get this award.”
Letters like that are dull to write and dull to read. One of my former students (Thanks, Meggie!)
gave me a gift which was the most marvelous tonic to salve the pain of writing letters
of recommendation. Dear Committee Members is a novel, if you use the word “novel” to
include Epistolary Novels. It is a series
of letters of recommendation written by an old professor who hates writing
letters of recommendation. They are
hysterical. I will think fondly of this
book every time I have to write letters of recommendation in the future. The book perfectly captures the idiocy of the
whole enterprise.
OK, so there are the two starting paragraphs. Now the trick is writing subsequent paragraphs
which work no matter which one the Reader read.
(This is getting more Borgesian by the moment.)
Jay Fitger, the aforementioned fictional faculty member, has
been writing letters of recommendation for too many years. He has mastered the form. All the annoyances of being a professor in the
modern college are captured in these letters.
He has letters for students applying to things for which the student has
no business applying. He has letters for
students who truly deserve the thing for which they are applying but who will
never get that thing. He has letters which
are pointless by design because you know that nobody will ever read them or
care about them.
The fascinating thing about the book is how it captures the feeling
of futility which the job of professor too often brings. I want to help my students, but some students
are so dead-set on what they think they want to be open to being guided. I have students who will excel at this or
that thing, but my knowledge comes from the fact that I know the student and I also know that there is no way I can ever convey
all that I know in a letter which will at best be skimmed. I know that much of the internal Administrative
work at a college serves no purpose whatsoever, but I cannot unilaterally go on
strike from writing pointless internal letters of recommendation because the only
person who would be hurt by such a strike is the student and it is not the student’s
fault that there are idiotic administrative hoops.
There is a curious fantasy I occasionally have. What if I had a set of a few dozen
jobs/fellowships/internships/grad school acceptances which I could just hand out
to students? I could meet a student, know
she is perfect of some particular thing or other and just give it to her. Perfect matching. Everyone would win. But, then my fantasy comes crashing down with
the realization that simply having things to hand out would not be enough—the students
wouldn't want the things I could hand out.
They wouldn't know that this is actually a pretty good thing. They would aim for something different. Sigh.
Futile, I tell you. Futile.
But, at least I have Schumacher’s book to fall back on to
console me in my times of despair. This
book is very Wodehousian. Don’t despair,
it says. Life is a comedy, it says. Just laugh.
So, now I am off to write some letters of recommendation. (Really, that is entirely true—I have three
or four letters of recommendation I have to write today.) I hereby resolve to write them “with candor,
regret and a whiff of vengeance.” OK, I won’t
do that. I’ll write them “in dire camaraderie.” OK, not that either. I will strive to write them “with
genuine as well as vicarious pleasure.”
But, I will smile as I write them, thinking of this fun
little book and this song.
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