There is a certain type of book, and it has always been popular. Always. Because we as humans are lazy. And there is nothing wrong with that, for it was those who were too lazy to fail who drove us onwards. The apes in suits who dreamed of a bigger tree, of safety from the dark, of white-walled squealing along a desert highway. But laziness in literature, as in many fields of endeavour, comes with its own problems, secondhand problems, conceptual problems and wrongheaded problems.
I don't have time to read all I want, so I am selective. You don't have time to read all you want, so you are selective. But the trend is these days to summary, to brevity, to a soundbite nation with facts served, if they are even facts, with infographics and considered opinions of talking heads. The popular culture attention span bleeding in to the libraries, your bookshelves and your habits, and mostly people don't even notice.
Having spend my first stint in the hallowed hallways of learning doing an obscure branch of physics, my tutor always used to say to me, seek out the sources. Why read someone's retelling of the Principica Mathematica, when you could, and here comes the thrust of this piece, should, read the original. Yes, you can gain further insight in someone's redaction, but at least start with the original, even if only once, to see where it all began. Secondhand viewpoints is one of my bugbears of modernity, as no one checks, and quotes are used as gospel, commentators held up as paragons of understanding. When I was a child, the refrain was always 'don't believe everything you read', the inference being critical thinking, and a bit of research. Check it out for yourself, go to the source.
And the same applies in the book world. The amount of 'Let me explain X in one hundred pages' books there are, while sure, work for a certain demographic, lead to the wrong type of laziness. I am not sure whether people think the originals just too hard, too obscure, too wordy, or what, but they are happy to be fed the OriginalLite variants. The Iliad too long and difficult? Read the abridged in rhyming slang edition, with all the boring bits taken out. (There aren't any, but the joke, for what it was, wouldn't have worked in that case. And yes, I am advocating reading it in the original Greek. Yes, I did. Or still am. As I get to (re)learn all my Greek from my classics days.)
Now, I realise starting my post with mention of science will mean people will shout about not having the mathematical background, and the popular science books are great for th
at. Sure, sure, I get that. But it might suprise you how little hard maths are in some of the seminal papers. Similarly the 'tough' classics, might not be as bad as you think. I know for me it certainly helped to have read Procopius' Secret History' (which is recommend, for arch sarcasm if nothing else, and some rather ribald insults I added to my repitoire) rather than just having it referenced everywhere, and indeed it made more sense. As I don't know what layered propoganda is in some revisionist's tome, so head to the source.
Don't be afraid of the originals. Seek them out. In fact, next time you see some footnote, or some biblography, pick a few. And if you have a Kindle, and read obscure Byzantine texts like me, you will find lots of them out of copyright, and are free. And you will see where all the thoughts came from, make up your own mind, and understand. Maybe you will end up writing a summary for the masses, but remind them (after they have bought your book), to seek out the original. It is worth it.
Life is short, but if you are reading around a subject, you will get some much more from having the original sources to hand. My plan was to learn a language a year, and read some original literature in that language (indeed I learned Spanish last year, and tried to get through Don Quixote, but it was slow going, but good for me) but I realise that might not be for everyone. Especially as everyone might not have an hour on the train to and from work to do these things.
Life is short, but don't waste it listening to others' versions of things. They could be wrong, and you will never know until you actually wade through the originals. Suprise yourself! Seek one out, and let me know if you think it was worth it. I would say it would be, every single time.
Finally, as ever, links to the pictures used above:
Mood shiftSomebody's watching meGrowth of knowledge
