Seeing Through Others' Eyes

A C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) quote for readers, from Outside of a Dog (a book is a girl's best friend), who got it from Kapachino.

As an only child who lived a fairly sheltered life in a small town, Lewis's words remind me of the many doors that books opened for me: doors to magical new worlds, and because English is my second language, to beautiful new words. Unfortunately, I didn't encounter C.S. Lewis until I was an adult.

"Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realise the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realise it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented..."

And two more I liked:

"The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. "

"It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one. "

Book Lust

One of the best things about blogs is that they remind us that we're part of a larger community. For a little over a year I've been finding and reading blogs that focus on books and reading. There are some that I think of as "professional" blogs -- Bookslut, say, or Identity Theory. But the ones I like best are those written by people whose business isn't books or publishing. These "bookbloggers" love books, reading, and words enough to take the time to write about them, and to do it well. They're the people who write about how they go about choosing the next book they'll read and the excitement of making the selection; the ones who go into a bookstore or library without a specific book in mind, just for the pleasure of perusing the shelves. They can't stop buying or borrowing books even though they don't have time to read them all. Some of them even read books about reading books (is BookGirl blushing?).

It's naive to think that these bloggers and I are kindred spirits, but I'm enough of a romantic to think that readers and book lovers do connect in some significant and fundamental way. (To those who would write BookGirl to say that she's wrong and thereby destroy her carefully nurtured illusion, she would prefer that you didn't.)

English is my second language. I have a vivid memory of my first grade classroom in the U.S. I received a mimeographed sheet with a series of illustrations and several words underneath each one. My classmates and I were told to circle the one word that best described the corresponding picture. At least I think that was our assignment. In any case, not knowing any English, I colored in the pictures and handed in my sheet. How I made it to second grade is still a mystery. Was it my proficiency in arithmetic? My good behavior? If so, the math skills diminished at a steady pace between grade school and college, and my behavior deteriorated once I learned enough English to speak to the student across the aisle.

My strongest memory of second grade is the reading class. There was a large box with color-coded tabs on the teacher's desk. Each tab corresponded to reading material that was appropriate to a specific reading level. By then I knew enough English to understand that the color-coded materials were used to assess the reading level of each student, who was then assigned to a peer reading group. Somehow, I managed to land in the top-level reading group by the end of the year.

At home I spoke the language of my native country, since my parents never learned to speak fluent English. But with their encouragement, and that of the teacher who helped me get my first library card, I became quite the library rat. I didn't get much guidance on reading material, though, so I was wonderfully, wildly, indiscriminate in my choices.

Other readers' backgrounds may be very different from mine (although I expect some are similar), but I like to think that we share an enthusiasm -- is it too much to call is a passion? -- that's difficult to explain if you haven't experienced it, but fairly simple to recognize in someone else if you have.

I guess it's not surprising that I'd take up book arts -- as in bookmaking -- and that I enjoy it as much as I do. And although I've been reading much much longer than I've been making books, I sense that there's an affinity among bookmakers similar to the one I've experienced among readers. I'm loving being part of another cool community that cares about books.