The Reading Life and a Life of Reading

By Kenneth Ring, Ph.D.

The greatest gift is a passion for reading.

-- Elizabeth Hardwick

 

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.

-- Groucho Marx

Part I

As a child, I was not a precocious early reader. In fact, I was not precocious in any way. I was just an average kid, except for my vision, which was always poor. Mostly, I was interested in baseball, girls and pop music. I had always loved to sing, having a good voice, but as for reading, meh.  

Although my house when I was growing up wasn’t entirely barren of books like the home of the Texas writer and book collector extraordinaire, Larry McMurtry, I don’t remember there being any books in my house, though there must have been some. Nor do I ever remember anyone in my family reading bedtime stories to me. I lived with my mother, her sister and her husband. My father had gone off to war when I was about seven years old. No one in my family had been to college. I did not come from a family of readers, much less intellectuals.

Except for my Uncle Bill, my mother’s older brother.

As I was to learn, Bill had had a somewhat wild youth growing up during the Depression. He rode the rails, hung out with tramps and hobos, knew some criminals and denizens of the demimonde, and had married a hooker named Sonny whom I was later to meet. (She soon divorced Bill after her former lover was discharged from prison.)

Bill had never got beyond the 8th grade in school, but he was one of those self-educated, bibliophile Jews, and somehow found time to read a great deal. I got to know him around the ages of seven and eight when he was working as a gardener at Mills College in Oakland, not far from where my family lived.  He lived in a little hut on campus where I would visit him.  It was crammed with books.

Bill was my first teacher. He talked about the books he had read – on politics, religion and especially science – and gave me some of them to read so we could later discuss them. Bill educated me and, looking back on my time with him now, I am aware that it was he who introduced me to the world of books.

But before my time with Bill, I did read a little. I remember reading books on baseball by a writer named, as I recall, John R. Tunis, and on astronomy, which fascinated me after my family took me to Chabot Observatory where I was able to hold a fragment on a meteor. There’s another book I vividly remember reading around the age of eight, which now belonged to my mother.  It was a book about the lives of composers.  I remember lying across my bed, engrossed in the book, which as you will learn, would prove to be a touchstone for my later writing.    

And I remember being drawn to the fiction of Jack London, then a very popular writer, though mostly forgotten now.  He wrote a lot about Alaska in books like The Call of the Wild, and kindled my desire to there, though I never did. I also read his autobiographical novel, Martin Eden, which my Uncle Bill might have given to me since he, like London, was an ardent socialist. Years later, I read London’s book, The Iron Heel, and could then see what a turgid author he was. Still, I eventually paid homage to him by visiting the last home where he had lived, in Glen Ellen, California. He died at the age of forty, a literary meteor himself before crashing to his death on earth.

In junior high school, I read the usual books assigned in those years, such as David Copperfield and Huckleberry Finn, but the most important event that occurred during those years took place when a friend of mine took me to his home. His father was a professor and his study was lined with books. I remember thinking, "I was I could have had a father like that."  I later wondered whether this was a kind of "seed experience" that was implanted in me then that led to my own life as professor.

I now live in a little house that is jam-packed with books. I always wanted to have my own library, a room with bookcases from floor to ceiling, like some of my professional friends, but I never have lived in such a house. Instead, I have bookcases all over my house, in every room except for my bathroom and kitchen: in my hallways and entry room, in my storage room, books tucked away in my dining room cabinet, etc.  I live surrounded by my books and my life in many ways has been defined and molded by them. 

I suppose I have probably read thousands of books during my long life, and still have hundreds of books in my house, though I have probably given away or lost more books than I now possess – many hundreds of them.

For example, when I left the University of Connecticut toward the end 1996 in order to move back to California, I had to leave at least half of my professional books and most of my fiction behind.  Over the years, I also lost many books when I lost my wives (I’ve had four) in messy divorces.  I’m ashamed to say that I’ve mourned the loss of those books more than my ex-wives. Even after moving back to California, because of lack of room for my books, I’ve had to give away hundreds of them.  Almost all my books on psychedelics (they are now in a special collection at Purdue University), UFOs, psychotherapy, mysticism, etc. Since I’ve always been interested in classical music, and have written some books about classical composers, I once had a very large collection of books on music, including more than sixty books on composers alone, and I still have quite a few books on music, but I had to give away all my books on composers to a musician friend of mine who is also a composer. It would be hyperbole to say that the loss of these books is like a wound in my side, but I do miss them; they were a part of me.

When I was still a teen-ager, I lived with my mother and stepfather in a home In the Oakland hills, above Mills College. During the summers once I had started college at Cal-Berkeley, I can remember sitting outside on the stairs below the porch reading very long books, such as The Authoritarian Personality, which was in vogue during those days. But what I also remember from that period was becoming acquainted with the work and life of Bertrand Russell, who was one of my literary heroes then.

I can remember reading his magisterial History of Western Philosophy on those stairs. And also his little, but influential, book, Why I Am Not a Christian, which I still have here.  In those days, I was very partial to books by atheists and agnostics, and I was keen on Russell, my kind of guy.  A bit later, I read his three-volume autobiography (I still have two of the three).

Around the same time at Cal (and later when I was a graduate student at the University of Minnesota), I started my long acquaintance with another atheist hero of mine named Sigmund Freud.  In those years – the mid-1950s – Freud and psychoanalysis were still important topics. Not so today, of course, when Freud is pretty much passé.  But I read many of his books and books about him, such as Ernest Jones’s three-volume hagiography of Freud, and a lot on other psychoanalytic theorists. Jung, too, after he split with Freud and went his own way.  As a young professor, I lectured on this subject as well.

And of course, as a graduate student in social psychology and as a young professor, I read scores of other books on psychology, anthropology (which was my minor in graduate school), sociology, philosophy, religion, etc. 

But before many years had passed, my reading life took a drastic turn away from all that. I had discovered psychedelics, which took my life and my reading into domains that were entirely new and thrilling to me.

And once I started my work on near-death experiences a few years later, I had found my professional raison-être. What had occurred earlier was only the prelude to my real life, which only began in my mid-thirties.

I don’t want to spend much time here talking about the sort of books I started to read then and for decades to follow.  Instead, I’ll just show you some of them.  Here is a snapshot of some of those books in one of the bookcases in my office:

On the first shelf are books that recount personal stories of NDEs.  The next three shelves contain books about NDEs (if you squint, you might be able make out titles of some of my own books on the second shelf).  The fifth shelf holds the non-fiction books I have recently read and the bottom shelf features the fiction that I’ve read over the past few months. 

It would be tedious to give even a brief account of the various categories of books I have read, so for the record (not that anyone is keeping score), I’ll just mention a few of my most important collections and how I came to have them.

When I went to the West Bank and Israel in 2008, and saw for myself what was going on there, I quickly became a passionate supporter of justice for Palestinians. After that visit, I acquired a whole slew on books on the subject of how Israel and its violent settlers have been relentlessly engaged in the effort to expel Palestinians and possess their lands.

Some years earlier, when I still identified as a Jew (because of Israel’s actions, I no longer do), I spent a couple of years reading many books on Jewish history, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. I actually have no interest in and am actually repelled by Judaism itself (I am not religious), but I learned a great deal about how Jewish secular history and culture formed my personality.

I’ve read a great deal about other genocides besides the slaughter of Jews. Four books alone on the Armenian genocide; books about the violent Spanish conquest of the then "new world;" the European ravaging of indigenous Australians (I still remember my shock and horror when, as an undergraduate at Cal, I read how the Europeans hunted down and killed Tasmanians for sport). King Leopold of Belgium and his many-years-long rape of the Congo.  And, of course, books on slavery and the genocide of Native American people, including the Indians of my native state, California. Think Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

In my guest bathroom, I have a little bookcase with all my books about animals, nature and climate change. Although I don’t live with animals, I love reading and learning about them, and have written a number of blogs about them.

I’m very drawn to the artistic and cultural life of 19th century France and have many books about that period and biographies of the artists who flourished then.

And of course, I have a wide variety of other books, on history, philosophy, religion, evolution, film, baseball,  etc., and hundreds of works of fiction about which more at the end of this blog.

But what I’d like to do to conclude this section is tell you a bit about books on subjects that may surprise you, as I have a kind of quizzical interest in subjects I know nothing about or have no talent for.  

Math mania

Although I have absolutely no head for mathematics, I am fascinated by those who do. So, I have quite a few books about mathematics, but particularly about mathematical wizards. I regard them as a species apart, something beyond mere Homo sapiens.  I love reading about their lives and the worlds they live in. And the mysteries of why the universe seems to be written in a code of mathematics which science attempts to solve. And questions such as whether math is something to be discovered or is a human invention.  I guess you could just say that I suffer from an incorrigible case of math envy.

The gay life

I like to joke that when it comes to sex, I am straighter than a ruler.  I’ve known a few gay guys in my life, but I’ve never had a homosexual encounter with any gay man.  I think the closest I came to that was when I was a kid sitting in a movie theater by myself when a man chose to sit next to me, put his hand on my knee and asked if I would like to go outside.  I soon excused myself and went to sit elsewhere; the man did not follow.

And yet, I have read quite a bit about the history of gay life, and of how much gays have suffered because of their sexual orientation and life style. But I think what I find so attractive about many gay men is their aesthetic tastes and talents. So many outstanding artists are or have been gay; that is well known. Anyway, I have read quite a few books by gay writers, both memoirs and fiction, including the marvelous diaries of the composer, Ned Rorem. And because I admire artists so much and wish I could have been one, I sometimes wonder if the reason I am not gay myself simply reflects a failure of imagination.

Overlooked women of genius

In recent years, I have spent quite a bit of time reading about exceptional women, particularly women who have accomplished outstanding work in the field of science, which was recognized during their lifetime when they were honored for their work, only, for the most part, to be forgotten by history. It irks me to learn how many such women failed to receive Nobel Prizes that they deserved because the men they worked with claimed credit for what these women actually discovered.  Although that wasn’t the case with Emilie Chatelet, who was certifiably a genius and did extremely important work in physics – she translated Newton’s Principia into French and her work influenced Einstein – these days she is mostly remembered as Voltaire’s mistress.

Fiction Favorites

The largest category of books I’ve read – by orders of magnitude – are works of fiction. Just too many to count and since this blog is already long enough, I will just put it and possibly you to sleep simply by mentioning some of my very favorite novels and novelists.

Of course, I’ve read the 19th century Russian masters – at least a few of their many books. Tolstoy, whom I don’t like, so he’s not actually favorite of mine, nor is Dostoevsky, though obviously a genius.  No, my favorite is actually Ivan Turgenev, the author of the classic book, Fathers and Sons. But why I’m so fond of Turgenev is because of his extraordinary love affair with a married woman, the incredibly talented singer, Pauline Viardot, with whom he lived for many years along with her husband, in an amicable ménage à trois.

Among the Victorians, my favorite, by far, is George Eliot. Of course, her big book and best known is Middlemarch, but my own personal favorite is her late novel, Daniel Deronda, which damaged her reputation. In the eyes of her contemporaries and fans, but not in mine.

I know everyone thinks that Dickens is the greatest English novelist of the 19th century, but not for me.  I’ve never cared that much for him, and if you were to read the book by Robert Gottlieb called Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens about how he treated his ten children and mistreated his long-suffering wife, you might change your mind about him, too.

Moving along to our own time and country, my favorite American novelist, and a superb stylist, is John Updike many of whose books I’ve read along with countless articles and short stories. The most entertaining novelist and short story writer that I know is man with an unforgettable name, T. Coraghessan Boyle, whom I call TCBY.  I’ve read about ten of his novels, and enjoyed them all, and quite few of his short stories.  Some years ago, I heard him speak at a local bookstore.  I don’t remember what he said, only that he wore red socks. Check him out.

To me, the greatest contemporary American novelist whose writing I have extolled elsewhere is a man named Mark Helprin, who deserves to be better known than he is.  I’ve read most of his novels and am totally in awe of the beauty and power of his prose. For me personally, the greatest novel I have ever read is Helprin’s A Soldier of the Great War, which I regard as America’s War and Peace. I can’t recommend Helprin’s book strongly enough though I think I just did.

However, to conclude this section and Part I of this blog, I must tell you about the most wonderful novel I have ever read that I doubt many of you have even heard of. It’s called The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, and its author is a man named Benjamin Hale.  The book tells the story of a character out of a Kakfaesque dark fantasy, except Hale’s tale is convulsively hilarious and, at the same time, deeply moving and poignant.  

Bruno is a literate chimp. Or at least he becomes literate. Not only literate, but he eventually becomes a Shakespearean actor. OK, I know this sounds ridiculous but, trust me, it’s not what you think. It’s beyond what you can imagine.  

You can get some idea of the book by reading a portion of a fan letter I wrote to Hale about a dozen years ago, shortly after finishing the book.  Here’s how it begins:

Dear Mr. Hale,

I’m 77 years old, a retired university professor (of psychology) and author, and have probably read roughly a gadzillion books. But in all this time, I have never, so far as I can recall, been moved to write to an author of any fiction. Until now.  

I came across Bruno quite by chance – no one had told me about it – at my local bookstore. It looked interesting, so I bought a copy. I began reading it at night, sitting in a warm bath, while recovering, though I never quite have, from a bad case of bronchitis.  I must have spent a month reading it, perhaps 20 pages or so a night. 

I was hooked from the start. I have read many wonderful, even remarkable, novels, but yours is, quite simply, the most extraordinary, glorious, unforgettable and enthralling novel I have read in ages, maybe ever. It is also side-splittingly funny. (I haven’t laughed so much while reading a novel since I encountered Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim sometime during the Pleistocene.) Ever since I got into it, I have raved about it like a besotted madman to all of my friends and even to strangers.

I finished it last night, though I would have happily continued to read it even if it were of Tolstoyan length. Bruno may have fallen in love with Gwen, but I fell in love with him.  He is certainly one of the most memorable characters I have ever met and he has taught me so much about how a conscious animal might well perceive our human world.  And it was devastating – and devastatingly funny, too, as I have said. 

Of course, like everyone, I thought of Kafka, of Humbert Humbert (and there were so many Nabokovian touches, too, especially in Bruno’s vocabulary), of Augie March (which, oddly enough, I had started reading, only to put it aside when I started your book), but your own voice, or Bruno’s, is so distinctive, and your other characters so vividly drawn, especially the Falstaffian Leon Smoler, that your book has its own enchanting singularity. Nevertheless, I feel sure that the lubricious Bruno will often be compared to Humbert Humbert and that your book will come to be regarded, if it isn’t already, as the Lolita of our time.  And may it sell as much as Nabokov’s book has, too!  

Well, I could write pages extolling the treasures to be found in your book, but as an author myself, I know that e-mail is the enemy of work.  So please don’t bother to acknowledge this letter.  I just wanted you to know how much pleasure your book gave me and how much its savage Swiftean satire hit home, like a kick in the cajones.  

Benjamin Hale actually took the trouble to respond and wrote me a very sweet note of thanks.

Now, hunt out that book and read it for yourself.  I can assure you that you won’t be disappointed.

[To be continued on Thursday, May 1.]

NDE Follies

By Kenneth Ring, Ph.D.

Dear Friends,

I was in a larkish mood the other night, so I decided to write a little parody about NDEs.  I hope you will enjoy it and maybe get a laugh or two from reading my frolicsome tale.  Here you go.

Title: “Death, Dying, and Other Inconveniences

I must say, dying is terribly inconvenient.

You could be having a perfectly ordinary Tuesday - walking the dog, microwaving leftover lasagna, planning your revenge on whoever scheduled a meeting at 7:30 a.m. - and then bam, your heart forgets its job and checks out early like a disgruntled employee. Suddenly, you’re staring at your body from the ceiling, wondering why you ever worried about cholesterol.

Now, before you panic and clutch your kale, let me assure you: this is not a tragic tale of doom. No, dear reader. This is a tale of curiosity, of mystery, and yes, of a surprising number of people reporting that the afterlife has really good lighting.

As someone who has spent a rather absurd amount of time collecting near-death experiences (NDEs), I can confirm two things:

1. People who "die" and come back often seem a lot happier than people who just try to find parking in downtown San Francisco.

2. Almost nobody sees a pearly gate. St. Peter must be very backed up.

You’d think dying would be terrifying. And yet, person after person comes back from the brink with the same general report: “It was beautiful. I didn’t want to come back. And also, I could see through walls.”

Apparently, when the brain shuts up, the soul gets chatty.

Many NDErs describe being greeted by a loving presence - a being of light, not to be confused with your dentist’s overhead lamp. Some describe a life review that’s less “Judgment Day” and more “Netflix binge of your greatest hits, including that time you stole a grape at the supermarket in 1994.”

And the kicker? They almost always report that the entire experience was infused with unconditional love. The kind of love that makes you forgive your cousin Steve for stealing your thunder at Grandma’s funeral by showing up in a sequined tuxedo.

Now, I’ve never had an NDE myself (though I once got lost in a Macy’s for three hours, which I believe is spiritually equivalent), but I’ve read hundreds of these stories. And every time, I walk away with the same conclusion: death, it seems, is a lot less scary than rush-hour traffic.

So what do these near-death escapades teach us?

Well, first: try not to wait until you’re flatlining to realize that life is sacred and everyone deserves your compassion - even that guy who chews with his mouth open. Second: we’re all interconnected, even if we can’t agree on pineapple on pizza. And third: it might be wise to live every day as if it were part of your life review highlight reel.

Also, pro tip - if you find yourself floating above your body and someone in scrubs is yelling “Clear!”, maybe pause before following the tunnel of light. You’ve still got time to return that library book.

In all seriousness (or as close to it as I get), the growing body of NDE research continues to poke holes in the idea that consciousness dies with the brain. If anything, these accounts suggest that death might not be the end, but a rather awkward costume change.

And so, if you find yourself worrying about what comes next, remember this: You’ve survived middle school. You’ve survived holiday dinners. You’ve probably survived dial-up internet. You can survive this, too.

Besides, when your time comes, you just might find that the next world is brighter, kinder, and blissfully free of robocalls.

Actually, as some of you might now suspect, I didn’t write this at all. I just told ChatGPT to write a three-page blog in my style and characteristic humor. This is what it turned out. My daughter Kathryn said it sounded a lot like me. Heaven forfend! I would never saturate my blogs with so much corny humor; a sprinkling of wit is actually more my style, n’est-ce-pas?  

Anyway, this is the age we now live in where you can never tell whether you are getting a note from a bot or a human body.  You’ll have to guess who or what wrote this paragraph.