William Shatner Mourns

After awhile, you get to thinking you know everything you need to know about a given person or subject. Having grown up watching Star Trek, I studied all aspects of the program, and followed the actors. From innumerable magazine articles, to books like I Am Spock by Leonard Nimoy and Star Trek Memories by William Shatner, I felt as if I knew everything about my first beloved Sci-Fi TV series. And yet, there's always more to learn.

And, given the inconstancy of memory, there's always more to learn again. So when I saw Leonard by William Shatner on the sale rack, I said "Why not?"

All too often, books get purchased, stored away somewhere, and don't get read for months or years, if ever. I picked up Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation by Yvonne Fern several years ago, but didn't read it until recently. But something called to me about William Shatner's book, so I started reading it almost straight away. 

Despite differences in where they grew up, Shatner looks back on his friend and sees all the similarities, from the era of their births, to the economic and social situations in which they were raised. For example, both men were raised Jewish, and their families immigrated to the United States to seek better lives. Obviously, they both grew up with a love of acting, and took up smoking, a socially acceptable vice that, at the time, seemed fairly harmless to most people. When Star Trek finally came along, and offered them other opportunities, they both grabbed at them. So both became singers and released albums. Both took up writing, and performed one-man plays. Both championed causes, and gave back to their communities.

I realize I'm being vague here, but the details of their separate lives really aren't important. What's underlying Shatner's book is a yearning for his friend. He's looking back, and thinking about how much they had in common, and how it united them in life and friendship. Ironically, despite both actors' uneasy relationship with the science fiction conventions, and the ongoing role of Star Trek in their lives, neither man considered the other a friend until after the TV series ended, and they started attending conventions together. It was only then, when they weren't competing with each other in the high pressure environment of the TV studio, that they began to sense a commonality, and build a real relationship together. 

Shatner is strikingly, even brutally honest in this book. He describes himself as a man with many casual acquaintances, but few real friends. He also admits that he and Nimoy stopped talking with each other, toward the end. Friendships are hard, and Nimoy was a far more private man than Shatner. Nimoy was far less easygoing, and felt things more deeply. So Shatner grieves not only for his loss, but for whatever he said or did that made Nimoy turn away from him, and refuse to speak with him, or answer his letters.

It's hard to believe that five years have passed since Leonard Nimoy's death. For most of us, even the more fervent Star Trek fans, life goes on. But after reading William Shatner's book, I suspect that, for him, that time has passed far more slowly.

Dragon Dave