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Books and reading

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I read an abridged Scholastic Press copy of Little Women when I was eight. It cost thirty-five cents. I have treasured that book for more than four decades (really far superior to the entire book, which drags enough that I might not have made it through at such an early age). I identified with Amy, not Jo. I know this is strange. I attribute it to my early conviction that I would be an artist. I was shocked to the core when I re-read the book a few years later and discovered that I identified with Jo. Being a particularly single-minded little imp, I found the Alcott section in the public library and read several others (Little Men, Jo's Boys, Under the Lilacs, Eight Cousins, and Jack and Jill). This was a time in life when I was nearsighted and no one had noticed. Books were wonderful, I could see the print...I didn't realize that my problems with other activities had a great deal to do with my incipient blindness.

When I was eleven I was particularly unhappy. It was at that time I stumbled on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. After devouring all six of Austen's novels (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Emma, Mansfield Park and Persuasion) in quick succession, I was devastated to discover that, other than her juvenilia, Lady Susan and Love and Friendship, I was out of Austen. 'S OK, I've re-read all of them more times than I can count - except Mansfield Park, which I hated and, although I own a copy, have only read once since the sixth grade. Jane Austen continues to be my favorite author after all these years. Pride and Prejudice is still my favorite novel, although I recognize that Emma is superior.

Maybe it was the name Jane in the title that attracted my attention to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Whatever it was, I am thankful. I followed the Brontë thread to not only Charlotte's other missives, but those of her sisters Emily and Anne. This also drew the attention of my older brother, who was supposed to be reading Jane Eyre for his high school English class. Never slow to recognize an advantageous situation, he transformed me from annoying little sister to invaluable Cliffs Notes substitute. It was from him I received precious paperback copies of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. As a bonus he gave me his unwanted copy of Lord of the Flies. Even though my eleven-year-old soul missed much of what was on the page, there was much that I understood - and fortunately I have always loved to re-visit books, which means that I have found more every time I've gone back.

It was quite a year - I picked up a copy of War and Peace and read the whole thing. Much of Tolstoy went over my very young head, but as young Pierre wandered the battlefield at Austerlitz, overwhelmed by all he saw, so I wandered through Tolstoy seeing things I could barely understand.

From Austen to Shakespeare to Aphra Behn to Chaucer to Brian Greene to Douglas Adams to Keats to Wittgenstein to Charles Dickens to Tolkien to P.G. Wodehouse to Bradbury to Le Guin to Asimov to Neal Stephenson to Nick Hornby...I continue reading in my sixth decade.

There was a short, abortive attempt to be an English Literature major at UO in my youth. I found that when a professor pontificated with his own little demigod view on Shakespeare or Twain, it hurt me. I quit that path, because I could not play the academic game. I suppose that saved me from the horrors of deconstructionism.

I wrote this Snow Crash paper a few years ago for my first for a literature class in almost four decades: The Limits of Reason

Somewhere I have a list I kept for a few years of what books I read in what order...maybe that will be appended to this collection when I stumble on it again. I consider two of the greatest gifts I've given my children to be a love of reading and skill in writing. My mother gave (and continues to give) me love, but my love of reading and skill at academic pursuits I came to alone. I had to struggle to obtain books and persevere to read them...it is almost a nervous tick, I have to be reading something if I am still.