Reading Norman Davies' two volume history of Poland. For a while I was off reading history. I thought of all the history I've read that's left almost no mark -- I know I've read a monumental history of Spain, for instance, thousands of pages long, and that all I clearly remember from it is that Cordoba was once a splendid Muslim city with a famous library. Shouldn't I maybe have read the Wikipedia entry instead? Years of my life have gone into reading these things. And now, the Polish dynasties sieve through my head, systems of land tenure, the wealth of Danzig, a vaguely grasped notion of the importance of the Vistula River, the extraordinary number of nobles and Jews -- one in ten people in Poland-Lithuania was one or the other, in the 16th Century! Unless it was the 17th. Will I remember any of it? Am I wasting my time?
I think I am not, but I'm not doing exactly what I thought I was when I started. When I was young and foolish, I thought I could learn all of history and have it all available in my head, or at least a lot of European history, or at least a lot of English history. Now I know that almost all this stuff will fall right back out of my head again. That doesn't necessarily mean it's not worth doing. There is another kind of knowledge building up, a synoptic sense of what people have done and will do, what sorts of organizations have succeeded, what sorts have failed, and some of the common notions of why. It's all terribly vague and unsatisfactory, and the more you read the more you realize how variable and subjective the notions are, but as it accumulates I find that I'm far less likely to be fooled by the demagogues and politicians of the moment. I'm no better at predicting the future than anyone else, but I recognize the rashness of betting on my predictions better than most. History has a way of wriggling out of what people expect.
And there is a sense one gets for the fullness, depth, complexity of any one place and its people. It's like looking at pond water under a microscope: suddenly you become aware of the incredible richness and diversity referred to -- but also concealed -- by a name like "water" or "Poland." As you focus the lens, you find Poles, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Ukrainians, Prussians; Catholics, Orthodox, Jews, and an extraordinary number of Protestants (some of them handsome crackpots rivaling our own Baghwan Shree Rajneesh); a menacing array of Turks, Cossacks, Russians and Swedes circling the borders, searching for weak points. Each single one would reward a higher-power microscope with the same increase in complexity and variety.
That, too, is worth knowing: and you gradually obtain the conviction that the parts of the world that have not yet been given thousand-page histories by an Oxford or Harvard don are every bit as diverse and complex. You may not have looked at them yet through the microscope; you don't know what's there; but you know that if you did, they would resolve into new worlds and new constellations of sub-worlds. That, I guess, is what you really gain by reading these fat narrative histories: a sense for just how large the human universe is.
7 comments:
Such a good analogy this, and a lovely piece of writing.
Okay now I want to read more histories. Thanks Dale. As if I didn't feel guilty enough for not reading more tomes.... ;) (working in a bookstore now, it is EVER before me!)
Thanks for writing this. Zeroing in on the incredible human universe...the microscope analogy is so apt.
It always seems to me that now I've got the real interest in reading history, I've got less and less of a head for absorbing and retaining it. But what you say give me heart that it isn't a wasted effort. Also, I've very much come to admire and appreciate good historians' skill and art, so reading them is a source of great wonder in itself.
We've got Davies' Europe, I'll probably never be able to read it in its entirety - and indeed, the way its structured, with appendices and capsules (fascinating little discrete, digressive, reflective pieces outside the main body of the text, I sometimes just read those, about all kinds of subjects) and notes and notes on notes, almost wilfully subverts any attempt to do so. But it's a real keeper of a book, it never ceases to fill me with awe that one man was able to write and compose it, even with teams of researchers and assistants and such like.
We just need several more lifetimes to find out about all this stuff...
Man, I'm glad someone else is experiencing the same isues with reading history as I do. I spend all this time reading sometimes very turgid prose about some of my favorite periods of history and I come away from it all not remembering all the details I feel I should. Even reading multiple books on the same period, only a few key parts and persons stand out that I can recall if I was perchance asked questions about it.some repetition does help a little, but I find that unless you eat, live and breath a subject in total immersion, the details all start slipping away.
You may not remember a single date or battle after reading Tacitus or Guiciardini or Ssuma-chien, but your feeling for the variety, scope, and limits of human nature and experience will be enhanced for life.
A friend sent me your way and I am very glad of it. As a lover of history, I too feel the same frustration of not being able to recall the historic accounts that so affected me as I read them. And here I thought I was just another victim of senior moments.
But all I read, I am sure, does have a long-time effect on my thinking, my judgment. That is more important than reeling off events and dates.
Am looking forward to reading some of your poetry. I like the wave-length you transmit on. Thanks!
Thanks so much for reading, and welcome!
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