I have, in my home library, two very thick paperback volumes of the epic Italian Renaissance poem Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto, both of the Penguin Classics series. I've had the first volume since the early 1990s and the second one only since 2015 the latter purchased even though I'd never begun reading the first volume to continue on to the second.
I had become interested in the poem when I purchased from Dover Publications, Inc. a volume of drawings by the great French illustrator Gustave Dore. I was fascinated by all the knights, damsels and villains, monsters and other creatures (including the flying hippogriff), battles between Moors and Christians, and many other adventures that were depicted in Dore's drawings, not the least of which was the spectacle of the titular Orlando (or Roland in Frankish) who, having been rebuffed in a failed love affair, loses his sanity and goes on a naked, raging, and environmentally destructive tear through the countryside (hence, Orlando Furioso=Mad Roland). All of this I gleaned from the illustrations without having first read the poem.
I remember one evening in the 90s when my mom and I went on one of our occasional trips to the Barnes & Noble bookstore at Wheaton Town Square. I had immediately wandered over to that glorious high wall of Penguin classics where I had seen Orlando before and bought the first volume along with some other books. Later I skimmed through it a bit, was satisfied, then promptly set it aside to look at my other purchases - but not before noting how long the Preface of Orlando Furioso, Vol.1 was: 101 pages. For me, it was a figurative stop sign, the end result being that I had lost, at least temporarily, any interest in reading Orlando Furioso.
"Rip it out!" Professor John Keating had exhorted his English class pupils as they expunged from their poetry texts the dryasdust 'Introduction to Poetry', a Preface by academic Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, PhD. in the film Dead Poets Society. Believe me, I've often considered that same simple possibility, and not just for Orlando Furioso. But should I? Not necessarily. First, any true bibliophile knows that such a thing shouldn't be done if the book is borrowed. Next, ripping out a Preface, even a manageably readable one, from any book would damage its spinal intregity and forever give it a mangled, third-rate appearance. But probably the best reason not to commit such an act is that I may actually need that Preface, because, if I ever chose to read it, it may aid me in additional comprehension and create a deeper enjoyment of the narrative, and also reveal to me some nuance beyond the simple precis I initially settled for. Drawn out and dry though it may seem to me, by skipping it entirely I might be robbing myself of an opportunity to benefit from its professorial author's expertise on this formidable but enchanting work of Italian Renaissance literature.
Ultimately, though, the Preface is blameless, because the sad and simple fact for my never having read Orlando Furioso, Vol.1 is that I have no patience to read it or any other of the brick-thick books I own, like Dune, War and Peace, Droll Stories, The Mahabharata and The Adventures of Amir Hamza (although, wonder of wonders, I read pretty much all three volumes of The Arabian Nights, also from Penguin Classics, so it can be done). And as far as the time required to perusing them goes, it can be a struggle to read even fairly shorter volumes when I face an armada of ever-present time-eaters - work, internet, TV, and print media, not to mention, to paraphrase John Lennon, Life happening when you've made other plans. I've won many battles and skirmishes against that armada, but the war goes on and may at length be unwinnable, but it's never, ever boring.
Many of you reading this understand all this and can sympathize, and I don't doubt you have sizeable home libraries of your own. Maybe, like me, you also have piles of books prioritized for near-future perusal, and maybe, to use a slightly worn simile, they seem to tower over you like mountains, but if you're a voracious enough reader, and, despite the armada, you can erode those mountains down to hills (or hillocks, where I am) and even to plateaus. And maybe, when someday I reach that plateau and my interest in Orlando waxes once again, I'll just blow through that damned stop sign, and, along with a (willing) damsel, catch a ride on a hippogriff to watch the Moors and Christians go at it yet again.
Oh, and maybe get Orlando some clothes. And find him an Anger Management therapist.
DB/2022
