SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 – On the Nilsson side, I have three brothers-in-law, each of whom is an avid reader. One, however, is the dean. In fact, his name is Dean. Late last week, I had the privilege of visiting with him about his extraordinary literary travels.
I first met Dean when he was a student at New England Conservatory in Boston. A top-flight clarinetist, he played gigs until . . . he decided to change careers. He became a CPA and joined a firm. It was later acquired, and Dean wound up as a tax-specialist at Ernst & Young high up in the John Hancock Building in downtown Boston.
As in music, Dean excelled at accounting. He combined comic relief with widely recognized expertise and received broad acclaim as a knowledgeable and entertaining presenter in front of live radio and in-person audiences. (In this tradition, Dean’s daughter Erica has become an acclaimed professional stand-up comedian.)
By 1988, Dean noticed that one of his little fingers was unresponsive to direct commands. The annoyance proved to be the first symptom of a disease that would progressively assume control of his life: MS. As his two daughters grew up, so did his barriers. Dean had to ride a medi-van to work and an inclinator up and down the stairs of the family’s home. Ten years ahead of time, Dean was forced to retire.
His disease, however, refused to retire with him. In fact, it took a promotion and became CEO of Dean’s life. Except for trips to the doctor and hospital, Dean eventually became strapped into a wheelchair on the ground floor of the house, adjacent porch and deck at the top of the ramp behind the house.
Things got worse. Yet, undaunted and with a mind sharper than a CPA’s sharpest pencil, Dean embarked on an odyssey far across the sea of classic literature.
Twelve years into the voyage, he’s read 157 books, by French, British, Russian, and American writers—and one by Cervantes. As you can imagine, Dean’s become a connoisseur. His one-liner reviews, memorialized on a spreadsheet, are humorously candid. As he explained to me, because a book is a classic doesn’t mean it’s great literature. For example, he torpedoed Dostoevsky’s The Idiot: “The title refers to any reader who finishes the book.” Similarly, he threw overboard, Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: “Sons, lovers, and lousy literature.”
Dean confessed to me that despite his years on the high seas of prose, he’d long been intimidated by the shoals of Shakespeare. Three years ago, he summoned the courage, charted a course, and turned the prow of his Kindle into The Tempest. Not only did he survive. He went on to conquer 27 other Shakespeare plays. My sister, Kristina, has arranged for a friend of hers, a retired English teacher and Shakespearean expert, to come to the house to discuss each play with Dean.
“What would you read again?” I asked him, after poring over his reading list.
“Anything by Shakespeare,” he said, without missing a beat.
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© 2019 Eric Nilsson
1 Comment
Perfect!
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