I remember, the owner had died. I have forgotten when, why or how, but there they stood in the middle of the small used bookstores main room. One box had remained factory sealed, the other opened and only a book or two glanced at from some estate sale or mourning son looking to make a quick sale. However, in my mind, the deceased guy was definitely single.
This was in 1991, freshly published by Britannica and the whole set was mine for $400! I also remember the 60 books incredibly heavy and bulky to shove into the backseat of my old Volvo. When they were finally lined up on the shelf, I stood back in awe like a painter who has just completed a masterpiece. Then I thought, “I’ll read them all.” This was like saying, “Tomorrow I’ll beat Joey Chestnut in a hotdog eating contest.” I may sit down to the hotdogs, but I’ll probably barf after 4 or 5.
With Coleridge’s albatross firmly strapped around my neck, I started my quest to read all the works. The maniac way to attack the set is head-on, from Volume 1 through Volume 60. Only a madman would attempt that.
Next, kindler, gentler “10 Year Reading Plan.” The plan provides the reader a way to dip in and out of the volumes, reading highlights, a bit like watching “Inside the NFL” on Monday and feeling you’ve watched all the league games played that weekend. That was the path I selected.
Over the next thirty years (yep, 10 years was a lie), I’ve scratched out a few works from the 10 year plan that I printed out. Over the “Year 1, Year 2, Year 3…” I penciled in 1992, 1993, 1994… and then 1999, 2000, 2001…and then 2014, 2015, 2016…
During this time, I completed a doctorate, got married, raised a couple of fine upstanding sons who don’t read much, and moved to Japan. The books through most of this time proudly crowned a place in our library except for the stints when I was in Japan. That albatross far outweighed the maximum allowed by airlines.
Thirteen years passed.
When the pandemic struck, for shits-and-giggles I decided to read the complete works of Shakespeare and make a major dent in that list. Soon a Zoom book club formed that met every two weeks. We got through every single work of Shakespeare, including a couple of works not found in the Great Books. We then moved on to Greek Drama. I was making serious strides.
Last month, I made it back to Florida to visit my parents. I also decided to stuff as many volumes into a suitcase as I could, pushing that 32 kg limit. Rebooting my mission again, I’ve committed not to the 10 Year Reading Plan, but to read all volumes cover to cover (see the note about the madman above).
I’ve been searching for podcasts or blogs to help guide the way. Surely, I’m not alone in my quest, however, what I notice is that others on the journey stick to the highways and well lit roads of imaginative literature—Homer, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dickens, Proust— and sometimes, may take a small detour to visit a bit of philosophy, especially Plato, rarely Kant, Hegel or Kierkegaard and totally leaving out the social and natural sciences. I too admit that I stand in trepidation at reading a volume of Euclid, Newton, Galileo, or William Harvey. Yet, the fact that Mortimer Adler and the rest of his editorial pals at the University of Chicago included these works tells me that the average person on the street can and should read these works. And let’s face it, if the binoculars I have sitting on the stand to watch my neighbors are stronger than the the telescope Galileo had and if I can run a computer and an iPhone, then surely I’m clever enough to glance into the pages of Newton.
So now I’m recommitting to reading these works, cover to cover and sharing with you my insights from these 431 works by 71 authors (along with the 102 Great Ideas in the Syntopicon). I grant that this collection is hugely slanted to dead white guys, but let’s remember that I also bought these from a dead guy, so I’m probably already well on my way to PC hell.
There will be some jumping around, as reading straight through two volumes of Thomas Aquinas would be neither interesting or insightful. Also, half the volumes still hide in my parents garage in Florida, which resembles that warehouse where Indiana Jones lost ark found a resting place.
The Oath, by Hippocrates
With that, let’s start with the Greeks. I have just finished reading a short, one page “The Oath” attributed to Hippocrates and his followers. I thought it appropriate as I’m renewing my oath complete The Great Books.
You may know the piece from “Grey’s Anatomy” or “Chicago Med.” New physicians still practice a similar oath, though many parts of it have been updated over the years.
I find the work relevant still even outside the realm of medicine. It makes good sense to say we will do something to the best of our ability, honor our teachers, help and teach others, and do no harm. However, that one line about abortions is about as comfortable as someone farting in a silent auditorium. Going through these classical works definitely give us an opportunity to discuss challenges throughout time, though sometimes it may stink, and I’m sure Hippocrates will speak more about flatulence in coming books.
So using Hippocrates as my model, here is my oath:
I swear by Apollo the god of poetry and song, Dionysus, the god of theatre and wine (we will need lots of wine), and Athena (because she is very cool), that I will read the Great Books to the best of my ability and seek out teachers and hold them in esteem. I will freely share my thoughts, opinions and observations resources, no matter how humble and jumbled they might be. I dedicate to helping others also find insights, creativity, knowledge, and entertainment in these works. Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.
Engraving: bust of Hippocrates by Paulus Pontius after Peter Paul Rubens, 1638
“The Oath” by Hippocrates, fl. 400 B.C.
I swear by Apollo Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.
To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the Healer’s oath, but to nobody else.
I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.
Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.
Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.
—Translation by W.H.S. Jones.