Thursday, March 25, 2010

MULTIPLICITY: Trying to learn everything before going on Jeopardy


In “The Know-It-All,” writer A.J. Jacobs – like his book’s subtitle says – goes on a quest to become the smartest person in the world.

What’s interesting about the quest is that the solution, the book’s premise assumes, is to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. Calvino dissects the word “encyclopedia,” saying it is an inherent contradiction, since “cycl” implies a circle of information (necessary closed). Technically, of course, even the encyclopedia is limited, so it’s not so much the encyclopedia’s flaw, but a flaw in assuming that reading an entire “closed circle of knowledge” ultimately imparts much wisdom, or not.

The book is quite interesting, and is even more fascinating after reading Calvino’s memo on Multiplicity. Jacobs has written a book about reading this entire “circle of knowledge,” and the conclusions he ends up drawing, I think, are very similar to what Calvino might have predicted from such a quest. Jacobs realizes early that there is a difference between knowing factoids and having knowledge. It’s a futile attempt from the begininning.

Calvino speaks of two writers’ different views to describe how one might tackle multiplicity in writing. Carlo Emilio Gadda believed in tangling oneself in a network of relationships as a means to understanding. Robert Musil gives the impression of always understanding everything by observing the multiplicity of codes and different levels of thought, but believed in not becoming involved, learning only by observing.

Jacobs’ attempt is a fusion, in ways, of both approaches. Without a doubt, he has immersed himself, tangled himself, in a network of information. He becomes so tangled that he nearly goes crazy. Like Musil, though, his vantage point is also as an observer, and as a studier.

For all of these reasons – not to mention the visual meanings of the book’s cover – I believe The Know-It-All is an example worthy of Calvino’s ideas.