The Same River Twice

September 7th, 2011 | Posted by AnnMarie in Notes - (2 Comments)

I’ve taken to rereading books.

Not whole books. Just a page here or there.

Sometimes when my brain gets a bit overwhelmed, the words themselves, outside of the commitment of a whole story, are soothing.

It’s not the same though to pick up a brand new book, read a few pages and put it back down again. That doesn’t work. It has to be something I’ve read before, something a bit familiar. Something just faintly recognizable, like a book I’ve read years ago.

I find the familiarity both comforting and unsettling, and I’m not sure which sensation I’m reading these smatterings of pages for.

Comfort comes from knowing–knowing what to expect, how you might react. And it’s easy to think you’re not going to learn anything new from something so comfortable, because you think you can have some sort of prescience of the impact.

But then you get surprised.

Herakleiatos is credited with telling us “You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.” Picking up an old book is like trying to step once again into that same river–I always notice the change. Different words will strike me, I’ll “get” an idea like I hadn’t before, I sympathize with a different character, I take an idea for granted that I once thought was illuminating.

And this the unsettling. The realization that things are different, I am different. It’s not the books that change; the words inside them are still the same. Unlike our friends or family, who (presumably) are also changing, books are a static measure against which to gauge where we’ve come.

And sometimes we need just a little hint that the water is still moving.

 

 

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Two Not Quite Book Reviews

April 17th, 2010 | Posted by AnnMarie in Notes - (0 Comments)

For a writer, I sure am behind on my reading. In a previous post I talked about why that was—between school and then editing for a living I just didn’t have it in me to look at any more words—but over the past few months I’ve developed a ravenous hunger for fiction.

I realized I have a lot of catching up to do. Because the books I’ve been reading are at the very least a few years old, and most of them over a decade, I’ll spare the review and just give a few impressions, in the hopes that you too will pick them up and love them as I did.

I’m still not sure why I picked up Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo, but it was definitely the book that “broke the seal”. It’s one of those books that, when you’ve finished reading, you just want to re-read immediately. It’s the story of four characters, unknown to one another—a man fetching water for his family, a man seeking food, a sniper, and the titular cellist—who must make their way in war torn Sarajevo. The language itself is relatively simple and spare, almost matter of fact, which is pivotal to its impact in telling the story. It points to the banality of conflict, but also to how the most quotidian of activities, juxtaposed against the backdrop of war, becomes completely horrific. It’s also the acceptance of this horror, and the fact that the characters remembered a time before conflict and have hope for a time without it in the future, that also gives the reader hope and engages her completely in the story.

In keeping with the war theme, albeit unintentionally, I read Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels. Whereas the language in Cellist was spartan, Fugitive Pieces was like having your brain dipped in caramel—deep pleasure to wade through and come out sticky at the end. It’s a work that describes the persistence of memory and quiet survival in the face of loss. Each of the characters have incredible detailed inner lives in which they each try to measure impacts, the hows and whys of their grief, while attempting to carry on “normal” lives. It’s a book of hushed tones and darkness, which turns into heat and light.

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Wanted: Summer Reading Suggestions

August 5th, 2009 | Posted by AnnMarie in Uncategorized - (3 Comments)

Ever since I can remember, summer to me has meant barefooted days spent stretched out on a blanket reading. I’d get lost between the pages, traveling through imaginary worlds for entire days, preferring to keep my eyes cemented to the book during lunch than to break the spell for even the few moments it took to gulp down a PB&J.

When I started working summer and evening jobs, then went to university out of high school it started to change. I still read fiction for my English lit classes, and squeezed in a few pleasure reads where I could, but it wasn’t the same. I’d pick up the book and get the little buzz I always did from starting a new story, but I’d get through a few pages before either feeling guilty for enjoying myself instead of studying, or just passed out from exhaustion. There was no more losing track of time making friends of new characters, weaving my way through serpentine plot lines, breathlessly reaching the climax of the narrative, enveloping myself in the afterglow of a freshly finished book. Instead, I read with purpose. Absorb. Retain. Dissect. Synthesize. Regurgitate. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Over the course of the past few months, though, I’ve come back to fiction. Certainly at nowhere near the pace with which I used to consume books (and I still pass out from end-of-day exhaustion after just a page or two), but a lot more than I have in recent years. Even though I write and edit for a living, I find that I still have the energy and desire at the end of the day to drift off into another world. Maybe it’s the heat, the late sunlight, or maybe it’s just that I’m calmer and ready to revisit the time in my life when I wasn’t too busy to just venture off into new territory.

Now that I have a real summer vacation coming up, one that doesn’t involve much travel and therefore too much sightseeing to squeeze into a what seems like a minuscule period of time, I’m excited about what books to dive into. I have two weeks of time to once again slip between the cool pages and visit someone else’s mind for a while. So, I’m taking suggestions. What’s your desert island book? A must read that maybe I haven’t heard of? Or the newest thing you’ve come across–a hot new author or title? Give me something strange, something precious, something funny or something sweet–or all of the above.

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Mid-Messe

October 21st, 2008 | Posted by AnnMarie in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

At the risk of sounding completely dorky, the Frankfurt Buchmesse is fun. Some people who’ve been going for ages will disagree, and I can see why. It’s the same people every year, doing the same thing at the end of the day. But this is also the time of year when all the people with clever glasses, quirky shoes, and outlandish stockings all gather to chat books. As much as it’s a boring trade show on one hand, on the other hand, it’s nerd heaven. Where else do you get to see books from 1470?

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