in earlier times

In earlier times -- times uninformed by television, air conditioning and silicone implants -- there were books and the word "literature" slipped off anointed tongues with the careless assurance of a pig wallowing in a sumptuous mud.

These were books of the past, books by writers 'now' esteemed as great or good or in some way worthy of latter-day digestion. These books were force-fed to a new generation. Class by class, term paper by term paper ... eat your spinach, dear. It's good for you.

The spinach-y novelists that spring to mind this morning include Proust and Austen and Galsworthy and Henry James and probably a bunch of others I have forgotten. And what I remember of them this morning -- aside from the fact that I could hate the homework they entailed -- is that all of the major works of these authors arrived in my lap by the pound. The books were literally, physically, heavy because, of course, they were long. 500, 600, 700 and sometimes 1,000 pages long. Long and viscous and top-heavy with enough detail to choke a famished horse. Shakespeare may have preceded these writers by a number of years, but the bard's observation that "brevity is the soul of wit" seemed to have escaped their notice. On the other hand, no doubt they were not striving for wit with the pages in my lap that refused to stop turning.

As a newspaper reporter, it took me a number of years to digest the appropriateness of the encouragement "Stand up. Speak up. And shut up." By the time I left news reporting, I had come to the whispered conclusion that anyone who insisted on interminable length was more than likely unfamiliar with his or her subject matter. And that included me ... if I had written something looonnnng, it was a good bet I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about ... it was just the adult version of the excited child who had not yet organized his thought and so was reduced to exploding breathlessly, "and then...and then ... and then." 500, 600, 700 and sometimes 1,000 pages ... "and then." It was just a whispered conclusion: Length was no substitute for understanding and was a poor stand-in for substance.

In earlier times ....

Nowadays, I can catch myself out being crabby about Internet entities like Facebook and Twitter, vacuous and vapid media through which people pretend to convey substance with a relative brevity. It is as if they had turned Shakespeare around and assumed that because they were brief, they were therefore witty or conveying some worthy and much-investigated substance. What they generally convey seems to be -- briefly put -- "me." And this "me" is accompanied by the unspoken and ill-founded assumption that this "me" is interesting or worthy of others' attention. And if enough people engage in the same behavior, exercising the same assumption, well then ... there you go ... it must be true: I am, as I somehow doubted I was, as interesting and well-grounded as I thought I was... endlessly.

Like others of advancing age, I too can feel the keen lash of loneliness and the longing to be among those who knew from personal experience who Proust and Austen and Galsworthy and Henry James were ... and had the good grace not to discuss that experience. Closer to the present, I would sometimes prefer not to be surrounded by those who are not exactly sure -- refresh my memory! -- whether the Vietnam War preceded the Korean War or vice versa. Yes, I have my moments of wanting things my way -- the way things were... better informed by substance, as I imagine it, and capable of a brevity that has a compelling back story and experience.

But was there ever a time or generation that did not contain those of an advancing age who felt the same loneliness and wistfulness and, yes, crabbiness? Seriously ... was there ever? I'm not seeking consolation in numbers -- that's just more vapid Tweeting -- but just asking: Was there ever? I doubt it.

What usefulness -- personal, experiential usefulness -- is there to the memories that stack up like cord wood, that shape and direct and provide a resting place? Are they merely insistent piranha which nibble and nip and tear bloody chunks from the present? Do they have some function beyond providing a wobbly and saddened support system to an increasingly wobbly soul? Is there some lesson from which anyone might make a meal of consequence, something enjoyable and well-muscled and sporting a witty smile upon its lips?

In earlier times ....

Yes, I think there is a lesson and I think it is full of a laughter worth sharing.

And that lesson is ...

Stated briefly ...

Life is more interesting than I am.

Thank goodness.