During yesterday's conversation with Jeannie and Teresa, we found ourselves revealing that all of us have long had the same daydream: that our favorite writers are proud of us . . . ghost Dickens sits in a corner smiling at me, as Ovid smiles at Teresa, as Dickinson smiles at Jeannie. Oddly, all of us nurtured this dream even before we were writers: when we were teenagers or younger, reading books like drunks, not really writing yet but nonetheless solemnly convinced that great writers were the pinnacle of human glory.
It brings tears to my eyes, to picture these girls that we were, worshipping so fervently at the altar, and so alone in our devotions. Even then I knew from books that other people felt this way--that was the lesson of Jo in Little Women, soother of so many bookish, awkward teenage girls--but I didn't know anyone else my age who was passionate about books until I went to college. And even there the others weren't like me. The bookish all seemed to want to study. But what I wanted to do was read.
All my life I have held on to this lonesome, wistful, obstinate, childish connection to my books. Among the people who declare "I rarely reread anything," or "I don't have time to read," or "I read to relax," or "I read for information"--all perfectly acceptable approaches to reading; all reasonable; I am not judging any of you--I waft like dandelion fluff. I am not serious. I am too serious. I am tongue-tied. I can't stop trying to explain.
And yet, over time, a few of us flit together.
2 comments:
To not reread seems insulting to those special authors who speak directly to us.
I read for all reasons, all the time. As a child I read in an odd vacuum. My mother loved to read while seeing it as a way out of being a coal miner's daughter of immigrants. She had a set of classics published by Doubleday that were in their own little bookcase in the rarely used living room. I started reading them around 11. In 1964 we visited our NJ relatives. As we were unpacking my mother was startled to see Madame Bovary in my suitcase. At first she tried to take it but then just forgot it or was distracted by 3 other kids.
That set of books literally saved my life. They also weighted me with a lifetime of surfing my different lives.
My mother is dead seven years now. I always wanted to ask her how she could read David Copperfield and still spend her life in disappointment. Was it enough that she put those books there for me to find?
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