alexpgp | Valery and L'Amour

The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.
-- Paul Valery, 1895

So starts a guest editorial from The SETI League titled The Folly of Giordano Bruno. The editorial itself propounds opinions I am not qualified to assess, but this quote struck me as one of life's essential truths. Or is this, too, part of a "torrent of verbiage"?

While I have a few moments, let me speak of another treasured book unearthed under the stairwell of the Pagosa house. It is Education of a Wandering Man, by Louis L'Amour.

Many people dismiss L'Amour as a mere writer of Western tales, which are not my cup of tea. My actual introduction to L'Amour's writing was a novel titled Last of the Breed, which told a pre-perestroika tale of a U.S. fighter pilot of Native American ancestry who ends up in the hands of the Soviets, and who proceeds to escape and evade his way across the Siberian land mass Eastward to the Bering Strait, using skills learned as a boy. It was an engaging read.

L'Amour's Education of a Wandering Man, on the other hand, tells a fascinating tale of a self-starting, curious, driven young man who set out at a young age to see the world. Everywhere he goes, though, there are books, and he steeps himself in them wherever he can find them. The narrative holds its own as an adventure and biography, but there's more.

The author's insight is surprisingly keen when he brings to bear what he's learned in his wanderings. For example, he discounts the eurocentric notion that equates "voyages of discovery" (such as those of the Portuguese explorers; among them, Vasco da Gama) with European cultural superiority by noting that the lack of such voyages from Asia to Europe was based on Europe, frankly, having nothing to offer Asia in trade except religion, which was a commodity already in plentiful supply in that region.

L'Amour has an annoying tendency in the book to toot his horn a bit shrilly from time to time, but it's easy enough to ignore the noise. I've finished rereading the book just recently, and plan to go over it again for a closer look.

Cheers...