Reading notes: 'The Unexpected Professor'
I tore through John Carey's The Unexpected Professor in a way I can't remember having done since I was an adolescent. I so strongly resisted putting it down that my sleep suffered. This was in part due to the quality of the prose: every sentence is interesting and leads right into the next one. More fundamentally, I was just delighted by how vividly Carey depicts his life of the mind. It's a joy to read about his reactions to literature, and even more of a joy to get a sense of how reactions to literature can be the sort of thing one builds a life around.
It's not all books; here's Carey after the birth of his child:
The registrar shook my hand and said, ‘Congratulations,’ which took me by surprise because I felt that what had happened was far beyond anything I could be responsible for. It was as though someone had said, ‘Congratulations on creating the world.’
Indeed.
This book seemed to arrive providentially and unaccountably. I read about it somewhere, devoured the free Kindle sample, found it unavailable in any local library network, took some notes, added it to my reading queue, and went about other things for some months. By the time I had the full book, the source of the recommendation was completely forgotten.
I can't really explain why I loved this book so much, and I can't even remember how I came to it, but I did. I'd love for every reader to have such an experience.