Plato’s Allegory of the Cave by Jan Saenredam, according to Cornelis van Haarlem, 1604, Albertina, Vienna

In addition to book reviews, interviews, and commentaries, I also re-read several classics each calendar year. My perennials include Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus and Antigone, Shakespeare’s four mature tragedies (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth), Ecclesiastes (Old Testament) and St. Paul’s letters in Corinthians I (New Testament), Thoreau’s Walden, and Joyce’s Dubliners.

How do I define a “classic”? Each time I re-read it, it stimulates my mind and nourishes my soul in ways and to an extent it never did before. It is timeless. It cannot be “housebroken.”

I have also recently re-read “Allegory of the Cave” from Plato’s Republic and “The Grand Inquisitor” from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. For those who have not as yet read “Allegory of the Cave,” here’s the situation: Plato’s brother, Glaucon, and his mentor, Socrates, are engaged in a conversation about reality. The allegory focuses on a group of people who are chained to a wall in a cave, and have been all of their lives. They see shadows on the wall cast by figures between them and the source of light behind the figures, outside the cave. (Keep in mind, this is an allegory.) The cave and wall are real as are the shadows but what about the figures that the shadows represent?

Here’s my take: The cave, the wall, the shadows, the chained people, and the figure behind them are all real. But they are not the ultimate form of reality. That would be the sun whose light shines through a hole in the cave’s wall. When thinking about answering a question or solving a problem, get to its essence. In fact, asking “Why?” again and again and (yes) again is the best way I know to identify a problem’s cause(s), rather than become preoccupied with its symptoms.

For those whose brains are in need of nourishment, I also highly recommend a resource that should be a part of every thoughtful person’s “brain food” library: Peter Watson’s Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud (848 pages, published by Harper/Perennial). Amazon now sells the paperbound edition for only $15.15. Watson has obtained unsurpassed erudition concerning the history of thought while developing a unique writing style that I characterize as sparkling eloquence.