While there are those who read more - and those who are more well-read, most of you know that books are as much my life's blood as hoppy beverages. I am not a book snob by any means (though if I am reading Dickens, the End Times must be near) because most every book offers something - something beautiful, thoughtful, amazing, profound, silly, laughable, horrific, twisted, pandemonious -
or just lovely.
I love to read words and phrases and sentences. I love how a writer can put an image into my head that will be so unlike the image in anothers. I love the ways in which people pen words that evoke specific emotion (surprise, horror, love, guilt, lust, envy) without ever saying it. It is a talent that I long to possess and one I try to cultivate in my students. Instead of saying that the attic was mysterious, it is so much more engaging to present the squeak of the stairs, the flutter of startled wings, the mist that is really cobwebs, and the glint off the lock on a mother's hope chest - beckoning.
I find little pieces in most every book I read. Yes - even Twilight - because those pages and pages of nothing but the names of the months broke my heart because it happened to me. It is why I also laughed so much at it's National Lampoon pardoy Nightlight which I have quoted in other notes.
The book I am reading now, that I have already posted several times about and am ready to tattoo every part of my body in - is like that. The Night Circus has reviews that run the gamut - horrible! NO ACTON! Beautiful - the words heal you! I embrace the beautiful reviews because it is - achingly beautiful with thoughts and images.
It is a book about a duel between two young "manipulators of reality." Magician is too gaudy a words and illusionist is not strong enough. It is also a love story, but not the kind we read now with quick attraction and palpable lust and a third person who becomes fodder of a choice (thought all of those things are mildly present). It is a love story of images and how we come to know those we love and offer them their own hopes and dreams in a way that shows him or her "I SEE you."
But I digress. This book is MY love story - not for my husband or family - but mine. If you would care to read my love story, it can be found on pages 343 to 352 of this magical book.
In these pages, Marco's time with Celia begins and ends with books. Here is just the beginning:
"Should I close my eyes?" Celia asks playfully..."Watch," he whispers in her ear.
The striped canvas sides of teh tent stiffen, the soft surfact hardening as the fabric changes to paper. Words appear over the walls, typeset letters overlapping handwritten text. Celia can make out snatches of Shakespearean sonnets and fragments of hymns to Greek goddesses as the poetry fills the tent. It covers the walls and the ceiling and spreads out over the floor.
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Now of course, there are pages of different images from Marco to Celia - but to me, being surrounded by the beauty of living words - creating images after image before my very eyes - is my personal idea of heaven. Don't get me wrong, I like other writing very much too. There is actually very little I don't like, but these pages of THIS book make my heart ache to live and breathe books day after day and why I can't seem to piece myself back together after reading a few particular works.
There you have it. I might often portray a tawdry harlot when I speak about my love life, but the truth is all a person ever needed to woo me was words.
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