The Trouble with Reading

I've fallen down a rabbit hole but it's ok, I've been here before.

As a kid I spent entire years of my life here, reading book after book, walking around with barely one foot in this world. Having kids meant I had to choose the Now, although I could have easily become one of those professors that bumps into things and wears the same clothes three days in a row.

I could have been even weirder than I am now. Imagine.

I watch my son, coming late to the experience of really reading, doing the same. He comes home late from school and immediately excuses himself, apple in hand, to his room. He lays on his bed sideways, propped on an elbow, facing the wall and curled around his book.

I make no sound when I see him there-the large, messy pile of books next to his bed a small version of my own. I know that he's not really there, and that if I speak to him the voice that answers me won't be his.

Inside the books he is finding the things that I want him to find, and the things that I'm afraid he'll find. He reads about the Chumash, the Maus graphic novels that make their ugly but necessary mark on him, John Muir's memoirs.

At this age I know that each book will somehow be about him, while the books I read are less clear to me; a Chinese scholar swatting flies under Chairman Mao's rule, a plain slave marrying a farmer and living through cycles of want and prosperity, a Black Atlanta teenager navigating a complicated family, Indian immigrants and the seductively academic world they inhabit. I recognize the universal problems of "being", the work of becoming oneself among the complications of community and family, the blurry line that context makes between right and wrong.

And when I get up from my books, I have that old familiar feeling of being a little tender and lost in the world. I look at a lamp and try to force myself to think "lamp," but I can't.

Today my mind is curled around its books. I am turned towards a wall, but I see everything.



What I'm reading this week:

The Bitter Sea, Charles N. Li
The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck (again)
Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri (run, run, run to buy this)
Silver Sparrow, Tayari Jones
Swim Back to Me, Ann Packer
The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay
Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv

Book Haus

Has anyone else read this? I can't put it down. It's an intriguing memoir on its own, but the fact that it's told through a foodie perspective makes it endlessly appealing. It's M.F.K. Fisher meets Like Water for Chocolate. Minus the weirdness.

Latin/ On Leaving the University

If I've learned anything in the past few months of blogging, it's that the public sphere can be a treacherous place for a tender little heart. And yet...
I had intended to share a clip of Billy Collins (2008 Poet Laureate) reading his poem Litany, but ended up, after three minutes of frantic typing, with this. It surprised me, too. Sometimes my brain communicates directly with my fingers and fails to check in with the shy editors in my frontal lobe.


"They say you've not truly arrived until your name is followed by a Latin phrase. No, they don't say that. I say that. But I don't mean it. I'm sure you can be very accomplished without being summa cum-laude or poet laureate. Without Greek symbols of your intelligence hanging in dipped gold around your neck. Without confusing people; are you a Free Mason? Greek Orthodox or something? Without the silly ceremonies where mothers and cheerleaders alike cross their hearts and swear to add their sweat beads of wisdom to the intimidatingly large pot. Where favorite professors in black robes knight you, press you into service. Convince you to ride shotgun and fight ignorance. And you ARE convinced. You see yourself moving amongst those time-worn halls till the End of Days. Smelling nothing but books and libraries and Fall, seeing tops of heads bowed down low at the sound of your lecturing voice. And bright eyes. You think of what chair you would put in your office and the eager girls who will sit there...a lifetime of sculpture and syllabi and research mixing with plants in your big-windowed house. But you take communion only half believing in your visions. And you could stay forever but you rise and walk out, your black robe billowing, your medals making hollow clanks at your neck. Those who have come to watch you, they only half believe too. And you can't make it real. The vision only goes so far, and you can't see your family or the Forever from the big-windowed house. Just books. A beautiful desk. Your preferred pencils. The soft light on your aging face. And you walk out into the rain and you don't go back."


p.s.-gone to Malibu...back Thursday. Talk amongst yourselves.

Literary Leanings or How to Pick a Book Without Oprah

"Have you read anything good lately?"

How hard can it be to wander into a Barnes & Noble and find something interesting, perhaps even fascinating, to read? Turns out, it's pretty dang hard. First, there's alot of crap. There just is. The "New in Paperback" table sitting in the center of the store is the literary equivalent of a giant Doritos display in the middle of the grocery store on Superbowl Sunday. It's not there because Doritos taste the best, or because they are made with integrity, or because they are good for you. It's there because a big company wants to sell you their crap. And in the long run, crappy novels just don't satisfy, do they?

I think we call such books "beach reading", which, when accompanied by a giant bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, can provide a nice, semi-conscious day of reading and making sure the kids are still floating-and-not-because-they're-dead-oh-my-god-I-can't-tell-are-they-alive-phew-they're-o.k.-get-your-butts-over-here-you-scared-me-to-death-you're-way-too-far-out-I-could-never-reach-you-in-time-way-out-there. I hate the beach.

And publishing companies know that you choose with your eyes. Did you know that? It's kinda like how organic apples look all mangled and ugly but taste super good and won't make you grow a third boob, but the shiny-perfect apples are the ones everyone wants even though they taste like apple-flavored sponge. You know about the book/cover/judge thingy by now, so don't ignore it. Lots of "books" are really just book-flavored paper.

I'm not going to recommend specific books, but if you'll let me, I can change how you choose your reading materials forever. Not even kidding.

The laziest method I can offer is actually quite good. NPR (that's right, hipsters!) has a show called "You Must Read This". So, I think the intent behind the show is mostly obvious. Contemporary authors discuss and recommend a book that most affected them, inspired them, changed them, or informed their writing, character development, style, etc. What I love most about this is they are not necessarily the books that the authors "liked" the best, and this illustrates an important point about choosing books: You don't have to "like" a book for it to impact or transform you, any more than you have to "like" a historical incident for it to have altered history. In fact, it may repulse, offend, or scare you, but change you nonetheless. Be open to this idea.

This is one of the blessings of an Arts & Letters degree. You are forced to acknowledge and deal with styles, genres, and authors that wouldn't be sought out voluntarily. It's like being teamed up with a stranger, and you must work out some problem, some issue together. You're free to reach your own separate conclusions, but in the end just see if you don't have a greater appreciation for another's point of view or experiences.

My second recommendation for finding good books is slightly more complicated, but far more interesting. Did you ever dream of attending Harvard? Oxford? This year's winner of the "Number One Party University" title? Doesn't matter. Pick a university and go to their website. Look up the Arts & Letters department and read the bios of the staff. Professors are into some really, really weird stuff. Pick the person who most interests you. Click on a class they're teaching and download the syllabus/reading list. Try to follow the reading schedule exactly, and stick it out with the books that you don't particularly "like". Professors organize their units around themes, so try to see how it fits into this theme, or expands your understanding of the time period or genre. Heck, download their lecture slides. If you need password access, email them directly. Professors aren't, by nature, rule makers or followers. You will learn so much more about history this way, not necessarily because the books are historically factual, but because literature reveals so much about the fears, preoccupations, and psychological makeup of a specific time and place.

Eat your Doritos, if you must. But eat your mangled apples, too.

And to the serious readers out there: Let me know...how do you choose your next book?