LOL. (and I wonder if I have owned that book!?)
This reminds be of a tragi/comic bit I read (and again, I can't remember where) about an Renaissance period philosopher/mathematician writing to his son, bemoaning that he had wasted his life foundering on the rocky shoals of pursuit of proof of the parallel postulate, and imploring his son not waste his own life following in his footsteps.
Now I'm going to have to find it.