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Blogging on a publisher's Web site, while I'm also in the process of writing a new book, editing a new anthology, reviewing two books, and writing an introduction to a classic novel about to be reissued, naturally leads me to think about books and reading and writing and what used to be called rather grandly "the life of the mind."

Recently a college prof told me that one of her students was in her office talking about future plans and casually remarked, "As a child all I did was sit around and read books." My friend thought that this was not necessarily a bad thing and was expecting the next remark to express this idea. Instead the student muttered, "I was such-a-loser."

Remember in It's a Wonderful Life, when that squeaky annoying angel Clarence is showing George Bailey what the lives of other people would have been like had he never been on Earth? We zoom in on the life of Donna Reed's character-actually a pleasant and beautiful woman, who no doubt could have taken her pick from the men in Bedford Falls or anywhere else. But what is poor Mary Hatch doing in a world that never had a George Bailey in it?

         GEORGE: Where's Mary? . . .

         CLARENCE: You're not going to like it, George.

         GEORGE: Where is she?

         CLARENCE: She's an old maid. She never married.

         GEORGE (grabbing his collar): Where is she?

         CLARENCE: She's just about to close up the library!

Poor Mary. She's wearing heavy dark-frame glasses; her hair is in a bun; she's going home from her lonely job among books, God forbid, to her spinster life where she will no doubt waste her evening reading a book.

Why is it that some people brag about the brain but others sneer at the idea that exercising it might lead to satisfaction or a happy life? Isn't the brain the very way we distinguish ourselves from our fellow animals? A great deal of our species' mirror gazing over the centuries has been preoccupied with declaring in just how many wonderful ways we are ourselves a distinct cut above. We think nature is just fine for what it is (a cute backdrop to our own epic) but we pity it for suffering under the sad burden of not being, well, People Like Us-meaning possessed of our kind of brain.

But if we admire the brain so much, why is intellectuality so often presented as a bad thing? Consider my favorite example: Brainiac, the comic book super villain. This dastardly fellow is one of the many nemeses who keep poor Clark Kent racing off to shed his mild-mannered suit and race around in his colorful underwear. Brainiac's unique attribute, as one might guess from his subtle name, is not brawn, not magnetic super powers, not invisibility, not a glandular malfunction that enables him to spin spiderwebs, but super-intelligence.

Because there is no costume for such a freaky super power, Brainiac has the standard-issue super tights and circus boots. Because it seems rather difficult to represent a thought process in a comic book, around his head Brainaic has a sort of halo of what appear to be electrodes. And you know he must be an alien (or possibly from Three Mile Island) because he has green skin. And here's an interesting touch: he has no hair, the better to reveal the noble curves of his brainy forehead.

But Brainiac is a villain. He uses his intelligence for evil. And who are the superheroes defending us against the alien threat of evil intellectuality? Well, let's see, we have a large steroidal Hulk who looks like a green California governor. In the Fantastic Four, we have a grunting Thing that appears to be composed of stone. There is a hairy mutant Wolverine with Jerry Lee Lewis sideburns and long metal claws...

Michael Sims, The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime, Penguin Classic, Penguin Books