Sunday Salon: Confessions of a Common Reader (Part One)

Anne Fadiman's book of essays, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, was a delightful and, at times, heartwarming book to read. Over the course of many years, the author jotted down her thoughts about reading and books, which have always been a significant part of her life. Like the pencil marks on the wall denoting the growth of a child, so too do the books booklovers read throughout their lives tell their own story.

Anne's essays are full of humor and sentimentality. While I could not relate to every topic she raised in her book, I did enjoy reading about her experiences as a common reader.

I keep a trusty notebook handy when I read, and the following are my notes as I read each essay. Because of the length of my thoughts, my comments will be split into multiple parts. I hope that you will share some of your own experiences and thoughts as well!

Thoughts of this common reader -

"Marrying Libraries" - Anne and her husband waited five years into their marriage before finally taking the plunge to merge their individual libraries. It proved to be a difficult task because they each had their own organizational preferences, which did not always coincide.

I asked my husband if he remembered the moment in our lives when we decided to marry our libraries (and our CD collections--which I think was somehow harder, although I'm not sure why). My own recollection is a bit fuzzy because, frankly, we did not really have any disagreements about which books should go where. Neither of us was nearly as particular as Anne and George had been. The hard part for me was taking that step at all. There was a finality in the process that was both exciting and a tad bit frightening.

Anjin's own recollection is similar: I don't remember any conflict. It felt like a natural extension of our moving in together. Although I still think of certain books as mine, it's just a vestige of old favorites being added to our communal shelves. The only weirdness was dealing with multiple copies of the same book, but we figured out how to deal with that pretty quick. We see eye-to-eye more often than not, so conflict over books seems a little silly to me.

Anjin brings up an interesting point regarding books that we still consider our own. I confess to feeling that way too about some of the books on our shelves--and about all of the books in the TBR room, even though technically, they are just as much his books as they are mine.

"The Joy of Sesquipedalians" - A sesquipedalian, by definition, is a long word. In this particular essay, Anne reminisces about her love affair with words. Her parents encouraged both her brother and her in their reading and love of words. She and her brother used to search them out, making it a sort of competition. Throughout all her essays, the author's love of words comes through in her writing.

My own love for words is not quite as passionate as Anne's. I do find beauty in words, the way words come together and are manipulated to form images and stories. There is a definite power in words and in how we use them. Sometimes I will come across a word that will thrill me, but it is less common then it was when I was younger.

I asked Anjin his thoughts on the subject and this is what he has to say: I never have had much love for individual words. I'm not the kind that likes the sound of a word or discovering how it's derived. As a writer, I'm more interested in the utility of certain words and how they flesh out the structure of my writing. I like words that evoke more precise meanings or that make a complex statement more concise. The right word in the right place works wonders. But it's the flow of the structure that I care about, not the individual pieces.

In reading this essay one of the questions that popped in my head was whether or not you look up words you do not know when you read? And if you do, do you make a list to go back to later or rush to the dictionary or computer to look them up right away? I admit that a lot depends on where I am and how easily I can access a reference tool to look up definitions. Sometimes I can figure out the meaning of a word based on the context it is used, but other times I prefer to know the exact meaning.

"Scorn Not the Sonnet" - The author writes about her own attempts at writing poetry and the point in which she realized that good, meaningful poetry, as well as the sonnet, involves more than just the mechanics of it. The voice in which the poet speaks can reach deep into the soul if done right. Anne shared how difficult it was when her father, an avid reader himself, lost his sight. He felt his life was over if he could not read. Milton's sonnet, "On His Blindness" helped him through that difficult time. He was able to find other ways to take in the written word, fortunately, and so all was not lost.

My 10th grade English teacher had a poet take over for a couple of weeks to teach our class how to write poetry. I remember how difficult it was for me to write even one poem. I had been writing stories for many years before that, but the poem eluded me. Like Anne, I was stuck on the mechanics of it and that hampered the free flow of thoughts and feelings that I needed to get down on paper. I did discover that year that the most positive comments made in regards to my attempts at poetry came when I wrote the poems in my geometry class. The instructor told me at the end of his stay with us was that I should keep writing poetry. And I did. For a short while, anyway.

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Perhaps you have noticed that my challenge participation has been next to nonexistent so far this year. I am considering dropping out of them altogether. That does not mean giving up on reading any of the books on my lists, of course. The very reason they are there is because I want to read them. I have not quite decided yet what I want to do and will put off making any drastic decisions just yet.

My most recent book acquisition is a copy of Dave Eggers What Is the What, a book that has come highly recommended from a variety of people. When I first mentioned the title to my husband, I thought we were going to go into the Abbott and Costello routine, Who's on First?

I hope that you all have a terrific week. Happy reading.