How I lived and what I lived for

I started reading a long time ago, when nobody was looking.

My mom said that she found out I could read at the age of three when I pointed out that a road sign said "Bread." Maw, my maternal grandmother, says that she knew I could read when I started reading the fine print on a television ad--she heard me as she was folding laundry in another room, spelling out "mail check to Colorado Springs, Colorado..." When I was a kid, and on into college, I fantasized about a job that would let me do all the reading I wanted. I guess I still fantasize about that job--true, I do get to do a lot of reading, but very little of it is anything that I actually want to read, as nobody in their right mind really wants to read scholarly journals or other people's dissertations and such. One of the best things, incidentally, about being a parent is that you get to reread all your favorite books again, and experience them through your child's eyes. (Always a startling experience with Ginny, who tends to focus on previously unseen details - like why doesn't their Mommy read Big Steve to Ramona instead of making Beezus do it?) Anyway, it seems that the only reading I do for pleasure happens at night, usually in the bath. It seems I'm still reading when nobody's looking.

My friend Bethany, a book club devotee and fount of endless energy, inspires me to try to keep up with my reading, to keep me looking for new things to read, as opposed to going back to my favorites time and again. I read every chance I get, but frankly, I don't read much contemporary fiction--or nonfiction, for that matter. In fact, I don't read much except 19th century novels (or historical novels that evoke the style of authors I already like). I know nearly every English teacher and professor I've had would be horrified, but I really don't need literature to provoke me or challenge me. I need it to help me stop thinking about myself and my own life for a bit. I need it to provide an escapist outlet, while not insulting my intelligence. This disqualifies most nonfiction, but also wide swathes of fantasy and science fiction.

However, this weekend I bought Dreams From My Father, Barack Obama's memoir (yes, bought, not checked out from the library, those of you who are keeping tabs on how deliberately I'm living--back off, will you! You can't read a library book in the bathtub). Anyway, I have to say--watch out Thoreau--this cat is taking your place in my writerly rankings.

You couldn't find two people who are more different--we'd probably describe Thoreau as a libertarian, while Obama obviously comes from a more leftist perspective. One moved out to the woods to discover himself and get away from the world, the other has spent most of his life in a desperate self-conscious fight to fit in. But I think they'd have enjoyed one another's company, nonetheless. I think they would have admired the realness, the authenticity, that jumps from the page of each's work. And I think they would have been interested in one another's solutions for the problems of modernity and the question of the individual's role in society. Not to say that they would have agreed. But I'd like to see how they might have faced off.

Thoreau spent a lot of time trying to get to the bottom of things--to get down to a bedrock level of essential truth about the world, and I hear his voice echoed in what Obama is saying when he talks about trying to parse the stories about his family that he was told as a child, stories that he had to evaluate for himself as an adult:

I had spent much of my life trying to rewrite these stories, plugging up holes in the narrative, accommodating unwholesome details projecting individual choices against the blind sweep of history, all in the hope of extracting some granite slab of truth upon which my unborn children can firmly stand.

I think Thoreau could get behind that.

Anyway, hopefully Obama will win, and more people will buy his book--not because he needs the money, but because we need his ideas, I think. Ok, all right, check it out of the library. Just don't read it in the bathtub. (Somebody might be looking...)