視點
作者：
The vast majority of the world’s books， music， films， television and art， you will never see. It’s just numbers.
Consider books alone. Let’s say you read two a week， and sometimes you take on a long one that takes you a ；whole ；week. That’s quite a
1）brisk pace for the average person. That lets you finish， let’s say， 100 books a year. If we assume you start now， and you’re 15， and you are willing to continue at this pace until you’re 80. That’s 6，500 books， which really sounds like a lot.
Let’s do you another favor： Let’s further assume you limit yourself to books from the last， say， 250 years. This cuts out giant， enormous
2）swaths of literature， of course， but we’ll assume you’re willing to 3）write off thousands of years of writing in an effort to be reasonably well-read.
Of course， by the time you’re 80， there will be 65 more years of new books， so by then， you’re dealing with 315 years of books， which allows you to read about 20 books from each year. You’ll have to break down your 20 books each year between fiction and nonfiction—you have to cover history， philosophy， essays， diaries， science， religion， science fiction， 4）westerns， political theory… I hope you weren’t planning to go out very much.
You can hit the highlights， and you can specialize enough to become knowledgeable in some things， but most of what’s out there， you’ll have to ignore. （Don’t forget books not written in English！ Don’t forget to learn all the other languages！）
We could do the same calculus with film or music or， increasingly， television—you simply have no chance of seeing even most of what exists. Statistically speaking， you will die having missed almost everything.
Roger Ebert recently wrote a ；lovely piece ；about the idea of being “well-read，” and specifically about the way writers aren’t read as much once they’ve been dead a long time. He worries—well， not worries， but 5）laments a little—that he senses people don’t read 6）Henry James anymore， that they don’t read 7）Sinclair Lewis， that their knowledge of 8）Allen Ginsberg is limited to ；Howl.
It’s undoubtedly true； there are things that fade. But I can’t help blaming， in part， the fact that we also simply have access to more and more things to choose from more and more easily. 9）Netflix， Amazon， iTunes—you wouldn’t have to go and search dusty used bookstores or know the guy who works at a record store in order to hear most of that stuff you’re missing. You’d only have to choose to hear it.