Rambling, I Like To Ramble. Sometimes I Even Do It On Purpose.

I got to pull out my trusty dictionary on Friday, as I started reading How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren. "Hey, honey," I said, "this book was co-written by Charles Van Doren."

"Which one was he?" he asks. "The father, or the son?"

I've had the book in my possession for a couple of weeks, and because of it the name "Charles Van Doren" has been on the periphery of my thoughts. I think that it must be the same one. Teacher of literature. Lover of learning, from famously literary family. Man who was temporarily seduced by his own awesomeness, if the Hollywood version is to be believed. The Charles Van Doren of "21" fame. I even see in the appendix of the book that his father, Mark Van Doren, is referenced. Page 206:

"In poetry and in drama," the poet Mark Van Doren once observed, "statement is one of the obscurer mediums."

If you don't know what that means, I'm certainly not going to tell you, because I haven't read that part of the book yet, and so I don't know why he is being quoted, only that he is being quoted. And here I'm shoving you mentally around a bit just for the fun of it, and to see if it works.

The names of the Van Dorens jump out at me because of their association with a movie, Quiz Show, I saw and loved many years ago, starring Ralph Fiennes and John Turturro. Quiz Show tells the story of the quiz show scandals of the early days of television at which time it was revealed that the contests had been rigged for the sake of ratings. Some things change. Some things stay the same.

All three of the movie's lead are very good in their roles. And even though he is a secondary character, I absolutely fall in love with Mark Van Doren every time I watch the film. It may only be because I have a weakness for literary men with gray hair, but he makes me cry, especially when he is confused by the decisions of his son near the end.

At the time that I saw Quiz Show I think that I had never seen Ralph Fiennes before. In fact I had made some snide remarks concerning the pronunciation of his name. After seeing this movie I declared that he could pronounce his name in any way he liked. I was rather young at the time, you understand.

Anyway, there is a bit of a mystique in my mind concerning the character, Charles Van Doren, from the movie. I can only speculate as to what the original was or is like. I expect he didn't actually look like Ralph Fiennes.

I like the film because it shows the sort of mischief a personable and possibly well meaning person can get into when flattery and influence take charge of his will. I like it because he is eventually exposed, doesn't get away with it, and though coerced, he eventually manages to take it like a man, if you'll pardon the expression. I also like the film because Harry Connick, Jr. performs Jack the Knife during both beginning and ending credits. Turturro was terrific in it also, but his character didn't co-write a book I'm reading this week.

The movie represents an interesting little piece of show biz history, even if it is hard to tell the fact from the fiction. And believe me, I haven't done the research necessary to detect the truth when I see it emanating from my television screen.

All this is leading up to the fact that I learned a new word on Friday: desideratum. It does not mean, as I had thought based on the context, the deciding factor, which only goes to show you that contextual clues can lead you astray. Here's the sentence:

One constant [among changing theories about reading] is that, to achieve all the purposes of reading, the desideratum must be the ability to read different things at different-appropriate-speeds, not everything at the greatest possible speed (x)

Desideratum is something that is wanted or desired. What the precise difference is between wanting something and desiring it, I do not know.