Sunday, April 20, 2014

The Bookworm Thrills


The Bookworm, circa 1974 or 1975***



I've just been reading The New York Times Book Review, have downloaded several new books, added a couple to my Amazon wish list and spent several hours dipping into the old reviews of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude and a few of his other novels. That made me search for my old copy of the book, which I found and which I'm thinking I should re-read. Marquez loved Joyce and Woolf, and just the other day I was talking to an old and dearest friend, and he reminded me of Joyce's short stories, how amazing they are, how you can pick up anything of his and just dip in wherever, start reading, re-reading, whatever. I had told him that I couldn't get through the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Goldfinch, that it bored me and I wasn't sure why. I'm wondering if I can get through the Marquez, this late in the game or whether I should stick to shorter novels. I haven't read a biography in years, so I'm pretty sure that I'll be buying the hard copy of the new Updike one by Adam Begley. The review made it sound fantastic, and while I came late to the Rabbit books, I fell in love with Updike over the four summers I spent reading each of those books, culminating in my seeing him at UCLA right before he died. I can still remember my surprise at his warmth (I'd thought he'd be patrician and snooty), at how long and thin his fingers were, how I wanted to jump from my third row seat right into his lap. And then there's Barbara Ehrenreich's Living with a Wild God (that's the one I downloaded), described by the reviewer as electric, but then later as discursive, repetitive and claustrophobic, but Ehrenreich fascinates me, and so do people's lives and their mystical experiences so I'm going to read it. When I was a child, I'd walk into a library, move toward the children's section and have to kneel down, my foot wedged in my crotch, such was the urge to pee. This ridiculous side effect of book titillation carried on well into my adulthood when I still frequented bookstores, and even now, as I click and download and order, I feel the same sort of urgency and excitement at the prospect of so much to read, so many books. There's still time.






***Really, one can't exclaim enough over this perfect shot that my mother took one Christmas when I was ten or eleven years old. She always claimed that she'd practically shout at me such was my reverie when immersed in a book. I think she made that maxi dress for me, and I'm struck by my hair grown out and curled, evidently, with a curling iron. There would be several painful years of adolescence still to get through when the hairstyles got even more scary, and let's just say that being a bookworm was not a ticket to popularity and ease at a fancy private middle school in Atlanta, Georgia in the seventies. Oh, and let's not even talk about the couch fabric.

14 comments:

  1. Oh, my dear Elizabeth. That picture could have been of me, although my hair was never raven. But me with my nose in a book, the fireplace, the couch fabric (why was everyone in those days so filled with absurd taste?), even that tiny manger- well. I think it's the one I still own.
    And of course everyone is going to say how much Sophie looks like her mother.
    I heard Ehrenreich on NPR and that book does sound fabulous. I loved "Nickel and Dimed" or whatever it was. It opened my eyes to a LOT of stuff. "The Goldfinch" is the book the wonderful book store owner in Apalachicola said she couldn't read and I do not think I even want to try.
    Books have saved me again and again and I imagine they will until the day I hope. I hope so.

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  2. Hairstyles and decorating styles change. There are so many classic books that will never go out of style.

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  3. I love hearing you talk about your love of books and reading and interest in the people who write them. I feel the same. I am literally gleeful when I know I am going to pick up a new book from the library. I've stopped buying them, as both the living room and dining room are floor to ceiling stuffed with them.

    We have a beautiful classical Main Library here in downtown Portland, Oregon and when I visit it I feel the day cannot be long enough nor my arms strong enough to explore and carry out all the books I want. It is marble and old wooden books shelves and q u i e t, and the 12 over 12 windows are often open in good weather to let in a soft breeze from the green canopy that seems within arms reach. It is my definition of Heaven.

    I am reading The Bandini Quartet by John Fante now. With it's 749 pages it will be my "fair weather in the back yard" book, as I think reading outside with the bird's and bee's humming around me is the best way to slowly devour a book.

    And I had a fun surprise on the Library website the other day when I noticed the "history" button and clicked it - revealing every book I have taken out for the last 3 years....it was incredible - huge - I had no idea. I would be speechless to see what I have read since my first library excursion 56 years ago at the age of 7 ....if only!!!

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  4. What a precious and prescient photograph of you. Something about your posture reminds me of Sophie.

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  5. Check out Marquez's "Chronicle of A Death Foretold", my favorite Marquez book (though a tough choice!).

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  6. Funny that you write about Updike's fingers as it is one of the many things I love about this photograph. Those hands, the lovely way they are cradling that book. I wonder if you still read this way.

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  7. I heard Ehrenreich interviewed today about her latest and she sounded intelligent and fascinating and a little snooty, so I can't wait to get the book. Helps that Amazon keeps sending me notifications that, because of their earlier price-fixing scheme, I now have money to spend in my Kindle account - woohoo! I haven't bothered with The Goldfinch because people mostly don't like it (and it's huge - what a waste of time), but I recently finished Sue Monk Kidd's latest (The Invention of Wings) and really enjoyed it.

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  8. and what's with the gun? love you.

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  9. That was me. Same fireplace, same manger, same curled hair. But I never got a maxi dress! We did not see those in upstate NY, maybe it was a southern thing.
    I think you're awesome there.

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  10. But the couch fabric is EXACTLY what I most want to talk about! Thank you for reminding me of that foot-in-crotch phenomenon, I remember that, too!

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  11. I feel the same way about books. Working in a library has been so great, giving me access to so much. I have a HUGE list of upcoming reading to tackle!

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  12. Uhhh, couch fabric? Not the issue for me at all. Can you explain the lrge gun just above your head? Also I downloaded the Goldfinch and read exactly 4 pages. I am not in the mental space to read that long of a book. My sister said she loved the first 400 pages but not the second 400...

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  13. Wow I'm just like Maggie's sister! I read 400 pages of The Goldfinch in less than 48 hours and then hit a total stall. I'm skimming now, just to get to the end.

    You and I were so much alike in our bookish youths.

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