A Common Language
Last night, I was discussing with Demon Baby's babysitter some favorite writers--and got on the topic of Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, and a few favorite books. It was prefaced by a discussion of the television show Firefly, which I loved--and so did he. So we have common ground already.
And I noticed something.
Get with someone who shares a love of books and you start rattling off titles. You find a shared ground. You get excited.
I could be exhausted. But ASK ME HOW I FEEL ABOUT the book American Gods, or The Handmaid's Tale, or Jane Eyre, and I will disappear to some fantastic, energized place. And somehow, you feel like you and your friend have some common language. Enthusiasm for the same book feels like a secret club. Like there's at least one thing about this other person you "get."
While at this same dinner, I looked on the wall and saw a quote from The Little Prince set in calligraphy. The Little Prince remains my all-time favorite book ever. And again . . . I assume that anyone for whom it is their favorite book understands me. Not all of me. But some of me. Some secret space.
So tell me, when you meet new people or discover a shared love of a very special book in your life, do you feel the same?
16 comments:
Seems to me I don't get out with the right people often enough--I don't run into many readers. Guess I got to get out more.
Hi Mark:
Most of my friends are writers or voracious readers . . . I don't have any "parent" friends (i.e., from the circles my kids run in) . . . it's all mostly based on my sphere of pals--eclectic as it is.
E
My friends read but they are not writers. I tend to read differently than they do...and that's ok.
But what I'm watching happen is that my daughter has become a reader with a capital R. And now we share that -- and I'm thrilled. Her friends are readers and they talk about books. They share books. My heart bursts with pride over this because I know she has found the way to a lifetime of fulfillment through reading - no matter what else life throws her way.
Of course she is reading all the trendy vampire books, and the werewolf books, and the magical books...even though I try to bribe her to read classics. Then I laugh knowing she is reading the classic YA of tomorrow.
Your book, E, High School Bites, is the next one in her pile. :)
Hi Amy:
My daughter is a voracious reader--like in the last year, just became one . . . and I, too, love that we can swap books . . . Oldest even loves and reads the classics!
E
Amy:
P.S. . . . . hope she likes it. :-)
E
We had dinner with my sister and family last night and of course the conversation eventually turned to books. After all these years, I discovered she doesn't read my favorite author, Jodi Picoult. Now she's going to start borrowing my stack Of Picoult books. You're right, there is real excitement in sharing this love of reading. I have a colleague at work with whom I swap books all the time. We greet each other with enthusiasm every morning so we can share notes. The receptionist hasn't read a book since school and I genuinely feel sorry for her.
Hi Suzanne:
Yeah . . . I love that--it's contagious. I feel that way when I find out someone else loves The Arcade Fire or John Hiatt (music)--but books are so intensely personal and we bring something to it as well as take messages from it, so something about sharing that feels extra special.
E
I automatically love people who love Moby Dick.
I mean it.
Let's say I got hit by a car, and as I lay on the pavement, I saw a copy of Moby Dick slide from the offender's driver's side door as they fled the scene. There would be no lawsuit.
Or perhaps let's say that my hypothetical 16-year-old daughter showed up with a 28-year-old perpetual grad student and dedicated pot smoker ... but he introduced himself with the words, "Call me Ishmael." Let the dating commence.
Or even imagine that I arrived at the Pearly Gates one day and St. Peter said, "You may enter, but first you must understand that Ahab is ... ahem ... down there, along with Queequeg and the rest of the heathen." Well, sorry my haloed friends, I won't be checking in after all.
JVZ
My best friend and I used to talk books, but I think she's read two books since the World's Prettiest Baby was born a year and a half ago. :-) We used to like Nora Roberts. Now we have completely different tastes, although they intersect now and then.
Even so, I have yet to find an offline person to rave about spy fiction with. One of my offline friends says fiction is the devil, and if she's going to read something, it will at least be non-fiction that will educate her. (I didn't point out how much she watches soaps, and "fiction" TV.)
You, however, like Neil Gaiman, so you must be cool. :-)
Yup, music and books are great uniters for me!
And back when I was living in Mykonos, Greece, that was one of the things that really bothered me. I didn't share those references with the person I was with or with most the people I met. Seven years later, when I returned to the states, I was so hungry for that sort of connect- and when I moved to NYC and met up with tons of readers-- it felt just like heaven!
JVZ:
LOL!
I did love the book. But I love your sense of humor even more. :-)
E
P.S. By the way, I think that grad student and you could become, ahem, close friends.
Spy:
Back at ya, cool gal.
E
Alyson:
Funny . . . me, too. Not Greece, but sometimes finding myself without those touchstone references, so I struggle to find common ground.
E
I feel a certain amount of...respect for people who know what I'm talking about when I say, "Happy Bloomsday," on June 16.
Yes. There's a degree of camaraderie among folks who've read the same books.
Jude:
Happy Bloomsday indeed.
E
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