'I Do Wonder What He's Reading Now'

In mathematics, we use inverse problems to assess the nature of regions not directly observable. Send sonic waves through the Earth. When they bounce back, we draw conclusions about what’s beneath our feet – land mines, corpses, oil. In other words, we start with effects and deduce causes, and don’t we do something comparable when considering the possessions of others? Haven’t you “read” someone’s bookshelves? There’s a risk of snobbery, of course. Lousy books suggest bad taste if not idiocy. Vonnegut? Gibran? Castaneda? You’re kidding. (I’m dating myself.)

In the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, Kevin D. Williamson has a wonderful essay, “A Man of Mystery Revealed by His Books,” about the vacation house he rented in Switzerland. “You’re supposed to be able to tell something about a man from looking over his books. But I can’t make this guy out.” He’s no phony, not the type who displays pristine fancy titles like trophies. The owner has, Williamson says, “real books.” Two subjects, he notes, are “splendidly overrepresented”: diplomacy and “its fraternal twin, espionage.” Might this guy be a diplomat or a spook? “Maybe,” Williamson says. “But not an amoralist.”

On the shelves he finds Isaiah Berlin, C.S. Lewis (about whom I echo Max Beerbohm on William James: “I was insensible to his thrillingness”), Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and volumes by and about Tolstoy and Orwell. There’s a hefty finance section, The Dean’s December and A House for Mr. Biswas. We’re dealing with an interesting fellow, perhaps a polymath or at least a reader and thinker without blinkers. No fanatic. Not a “one-book man.” He has Lord David Cecil’s biography of Beerbohm.

What might a renter conclude from the contents of my shelves? What’s with all the poetry? Why more books by and about Spinoza than any other philosopher? Who is this A.J. Liebling guy? What’s the big deal about insects? Why volumes by only one African writer (St. Augustine)? Has he read all that Henry James? As Williamson concludes his essay:

“Who is this guy? I don’t know. But I do wonder what he’s reading now.”

[Philip Terzian speculates on the identity of Williamson’s landlord.]