On being (and seeming) learned

In my sparest of spare time this week I have been reading Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris and I am almost certain that I like the collection of essays about loving books and the side effects thereof (correcting typos on menus). However, reading this collection has awoken my old nemesis/pipedream. The particular nemesis that I am referencing (for my nemesis-es are only outnumbered by my groundless fears in the census survey of my imagination) is my struggle to seem well read and well educated in conversation. I can throw out a large word or a mildly cultured quip, if pressed, but when confronted with the actual intelligentsia I have no doubt that they would quickly discover that the majority of my vocabulary comes a vigorous spelling test in the 10th grade and most of my quips are lifted straight from sitcoms.

Anne Fadiman is well read and well educated and she also scores well in the bonus round of “flaunting it.” I’m not trying to be mean (if I were you would certainly know it and think less of me), merely honest. The essays are great but this chick – and she would almost certainly protest that familiar mode of address – spoke of reading the poetry of Virgil as though it was no great feat. Moreover, she actually knew other people who had read Virgil and wanted to talk about it!

I was envious of Fadiman’s educated social set while reading the first few essays but when my ego regained the upper hand in my cerebellum I regretted my wish. I, a snob in my own right, think that Virgil is a great name for an animated eccentric scientist and I don’t want anyone discussing him in any other light in my presence.

Blaspheming aside, there is a large part of me that wishes that I had a solid grasp of the classics. I have a decent basis in English and American literature but the antiquities are lost (ha…ha…) on me. I have a tenuous understanding of how to use the word Platonic when one isn’t trying to explain a messy break-up, but the other poets and philosophers meld together in my mind, forming a large toga-wearing mass of wisdom. I’m not even sure if I could use the phrase “existentialism” in a way that would make me seem awesome without some serious premeditation.

To add insult to injury (not that Fadiman did anything specific to injury me besides being downright scholarly), I was stumped several times today while watching Cash Cab in a sandwich shop. An elderly couple on their way to a steak and shrimp restaurant knew gobs more about late-‘90s politics, McCarthy-era theater, and Mexican holidays than I did.

Cripes.