As much as I love essays, I seem to get distracted and wrapped up too much in books. I decided in July I would make a concentrated effort to read essays–in part to finish the essay challenge (I’m actually completing a challenge), in part to develop a habit of reading essays, and in part because I just seem to do better if I set a specific goal. The full list for the month is on the essay page, but here are a few thoughts:
I Love Anne Fadiman
I spent a good portion of my essay reading reveling in Ex Libris. If you love books and you haven’t read her volume of essays on reading and books, buy it right now and read it. Anne’s parents raised her in a reading household and, as a mother who is trying to do the same with her children, it’s reassuring to see that she loved it. One essay describes how her family loved to discover long, difficult words. In our family, my husband collects words all year long (most from the word-a-day service from dictionary.com), writes them on 3×5 cards and then during meals on our big family vacation (because three meals a day, every day, for two weeks is too much family conversation for teenagers) he quizzes all of us. Kyle tries to find meanings from his Latin classes, I tend to know the word or just make up a definition, and Kelsey is highly motivated by the dime the kids get for every correct definition.
For our upcoming vacation, I’m going to copy “Never Do That To A Book” and read it over a leisurely dinner. We are a family of doing everything to a book. We stick things in them, we prop them open, I write all over mine, we use them as door stops (two summers ago we used The World is Flat, last year War and Peace, and I’ve been trying to use the volume of law review journals that Keith edited 20 years ago this summer, but he keeps putting that hefty book away), our books are under the car seats and stuck willy nilly through out the house. My kids will be astonished to hear that our treatment of books, something we love, would offend some people.
Her “You Are There” essay rang true for me. Whenever I travel, I look for books about where I’m going (Idlewild Books is a great resource). My stack for our upcoming England trip weighs as much as I do (my suggestions for Italy and San Miguel de Allende). But I was able to experience you-are-there reading right after this essay when I sat on a bench in Central Park reading “Here is New York.”
On the way to Central Park, I saw on my Blackberry that Daniel Schorr died. I loved his insights and banter with Scott Simon on Saturday mornings. It felt like a fitting way to remember him was to read E.B. White, to me they evoke the same calm wisdom and charm. So I curled up on a bench and leisurely read “Here is New York.” In the midst of the hordes and noise of New York City, I experienced a moment of serenity, E.B. White brought the depth and strength of New York to life. He wrote about the history that permeates the city, what unites it, and what type of person it attracts and retains. And then, in one of the closing paragraphs of an essay written 61 years ago, are these words:
The subtlest change in New York is something people don’t speak much about but that is in everyone’s mind. The city, for the first time in its long historoy, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now: In the sound of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition.
No doubt he was thinking of the atom bomb, but his words were too close for comfort. No wonder a photo exhibit of post 9/11 New York City was entitled Here is New York.
Tags: Anne Fadiman essay, E.B. White Here is New York, essay reading
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I love Fadiman, too! Her other book At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays is just as wonderful.
Good for you for finishing the challenge! -
You should know you got me reading Fadiman. I adored Ex Libris.
But I beg you to please stop abusing your books.
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