Keith Gessen

Transcripts of two conversations that took place at the offices of n+1 in New York City. Two groups of smart thirtysomething writers gather, in person, to talk candidly about books they wish they had and hadn't read as teenagers and as college students.

Two Discussions

What We Should Have Known

Donald

My college career is an untraditional one. I dropped out of high school after my sophomore year and planned never to attend college. I kept that up into my 20s. Then a combination of intellectual stagnation - I was reading lots and lots but had nobody to talk about books with - and just life stagnation led me to start taking a few random college classes. I took a class about the American Revolution (excellent, learned an immense amount), Logic (helpful, also learned that I didn't like formal logic), Greek history (sorta okay), etc. I definitely have some regrets about how I approached these classes, but ultimately they were okay.

When I moved to Philadelphia I applied to the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University. I applied to the former because it was closest to my apartment, not knowing it was a famous school (seriously!). I applied to both schools assuming I would pursue Jewish Studies. I wanted to learn Hebrew and read Torah, as well as modern Jewish philosophy. Somewhere along the way I shifted courses and devoted myself to classical languages. I'm still doing Jewish scholarship (half of my summer will be doing just that in Princeton and Middlebury), but my main interest is Plato. Penn is not the intellectual environment I want, which isn't surprising, but I am getting an excellent education in classical philology. I am reading important books and thinking about important questions. I am being challenged.
 
That long introduction is a way of saying that my experience with college is totally different from that of the people in this book, all of whom went to college right after high school (as far as I can tell). I have a totally different set of regrets than the regrets of the authors. Sometimes I regret not going to St. John's College or the New College in Florida. Both would have been 'good' for me in a lot of ways, but my teenage self might have fought against them. It was really important for me to be humbled and challenged before I could begin to actually become educated, and I'm not sure if those places would've done that. Maybe teenage hubris can only be broken with time. I regret reading so much anarchist and communist stuff instead of reading Great Books or books that challenged what I believe(d) in. I regret not reading more poetry.

Final verdict: I think a lot of people will hate this book or scoff at it, but I liked it a lot. It'd be a good thing to read if you're going to school.

What We Should Have Known Two Discussions

Reviews