“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision … Mystery, ancient and Modern … the Classical master … taught Laughing and Grief.” —Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, IX.
Reeling and Writhing in
the 21st Century
At one of her friend Anna Mattiuzzo’s famous dinner parties in her hometown of Montreal, Margaret van Dyck, painter and goth dandy, met a very bright and affable 32-year-old family physician named Martin Sawyer. He told her his girlfriend had just left him because he had never heard of Emily Dickinson, Matisse or the Hapsburg Empire. As a result of his heartbreak he was very eager to learn more about literature, art, history and much else, but had no idea how to proceed.
Margaret asked him if he could find an hour a day to read. He said yes, but what books should he read? His university experience outside of his courses in science and medicine had been a disappointment. His literature professor had reveled in the presumed racism, misogyny and elitism of the authors she taught—and not in their aesthetic and cognitive splendours, and certainly not in what used to be called their “genius” (still a bad word in university literature departments, implying bourgeois mystification)—and so had spoiled literature for him. His philosophy professor had luxuriated in the thickets of “analytic” or “linguistic” philosophy—where a sterile confinement to matters of language rather than of reality predominated, and where the big and interesting questions of life were hardly, if ever, addressed—and so had turned him off philosophy.
As a result, he sleepwalked through the few humanities courses he managed to endure at his otherwise excellent university, in a laudable, if futile, attempt to become “well-rounded.” But he retained a nagging feeling that his education was somehow incomplete, and that his creativity as a doctor and even his personal life and happiness had been somehow compromised. They exchanged email addresses. Margaret promised to help Martin as best she could with a few recommendations on how he might proceed. The following is a record of their emails, edited for clarity, unnecessary repetition, and brevity.
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