In college I loved going through the course catalogue before each semester started and reading all the different course descriptions. So many classes sounded interesting when reduced to four or five sentences. However, I was often seduced into taking classes that turned out to be less than I'd imagined: "Aristotle," "Mind, Brain & Behavior," and (most notoriously amongst my friends) "The History of the English Language."

Looking back on it now, I think maybe it was the image I had in my mind of the type of person who would take those particular classes that made me sign up for them. I liked the person I imagined I would become if I knew more about, say, the "Philosophy of Literary Criticism."

I'm not sure that's a good way to make decisions, but sometimes I wonder if that tendency is still with me in the books I choose to read; several of my fellow bookclub members were none too pleased to read Sentimental Education, for instance. I guess the question is whether or not Flaubert adds anything to my life, or if I just want to be someone who can say he's read Flaubert even if he doesn't remember anything about it. I'm not sure I really know the answer to that, to be honest.

I really do honestly try to feed my curiosity. Drew's a great partner in that. We're always asking each other questions, several of which end up in the sidebar "Why Don't I Know This?" to the right of this entry. I keep that list up because those are all questions I have genuine interest in. I tell myself I'll take down a question when I feel comfortable that I know the answer. I still have to click on nearly all of them.

I'm not as concerned with appearing smart as I was in college. (At least I tell myself that, because my life loses meaning if I don't convince myself there's some type of evolution happening on a yearly basis.) I don't think it's dishonest for me to say that I read books because I love to read and not because I want to blog about how I love to read so you'll think I'm smart and interesting.

I do talk about what I'm reading on this blog so that I won't take three weeks to finish a book, though. But I don't think I'm doing it because I like the image I think I'm creating of myself in your mind. I do it for myself. And maybe that's what I was doing in college and I'm just being too hard on myself. Maybe reading Herzog was no different than "History of the English Language": a well-intentioned mistake. I do know that even if my reading taste is pretentious and I may justifiably be accused of being a literary dilettante, Swann's Way was a fantastic read and I'll never regret it.