Back in the 1980s I acquired a paperback size book with ruled blank pages. It was hard bound and covered with red plaid cloth. At first I didn’t know what use I would put it to, but by 1983 I had started jotting down poetry and quotations from books I was reading. So the red plaid book has turned into a compendium of literature that has had special meaning in my life.
The scope of the entries goes from ditties my grandmother taught me to classical poetry and ancient aphorisms. A couple are in Latin. One poem was given to me by a high school friend who wouldn’t tell me where it was from. Years later I tracked it down and found it was an elegy. It is one of my all-time favorite poems and I had it read at my father’s funeral.
Casual poetry writing has been done in our family for a few generations. Some has been immortalized on Ancestry.com. The red plaid book has the poem my mother wrote about my life at Tufts University and a poem I wrote about sub-atomic particles.
At some point I was interested in communism in this country during the 1930s. I loved Whittaker Chamber’s autobiography called Witness. It told the story of his secret involvement in a U.S. communist cell and his gradual disillusion with communism. The disillusion developed as he ruminated on his inner nature and the nature of mankind, ands its these ruminations which I found compelling.
Along the same lines was the autobiography of Sidney Hook called Out of Step; An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century. Hook also started out as a communist in the 1930s and gradually came to denounce it. His was a rich intellectual life and his work is highly quotable.
I have quotations from many other books, both fiction and non-fiction. They are not all great literature, but the best thing about the red plaid book is that it contains things that were meaningful to me, and the opinions of other people are totally irelevant. Your book would have entirely different entries, because they come from your unique experience, thoughts, taste, and values.
Mine is a pretty bookish life and sometimes I have to remind myself that there’s more to life than reading. In fact, I believe that knowledge and logic can get you only so far in trying to discern truth. Intuition and ineffable experiences that can’t be put into words enhance our understanding of reality. Hence my love of the following poem:
There has been a coup
In the Kingdom of Thought.
Love now reigns
In the Idea Palace.
Fiery humeurs
Are burning books.
And mindless joy
Beheads philosophy.
– Liu Ah Mien
Shanghai 1935