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05/27/2004 When life gets hard, I need a book that's like a glass of warm milk. I need historical epics and biographies of queens and theology texts and tracts on compassion by the Dalai Lama. Soothing reads to lead me gently into delicate and longed for sleep. A book to give my busy brain a taste of something diverting, dense and comforting, but not something so intriguing that I'll be reading at 4 a.m.

And life has been hard, I guess, because I noticed last week that I hadn't read any new fiction in a long time. It's because I am a coward. It's because of the way it affects me. It's because — if what I've been reading is a glass of warm milk — a certain kind of novel is like a snifter of some exotic liquor — lens-clear, bending light and coloring everything. Tricky. Hypnotic. Volatile. Is it something to be inhaled? swallowed whole? sipped? Will it burn? Will it satisfy? Will it produce the sweetly drunken state that echoes with those first transporting feelings of reading? (Song of Hiawatha and Hardy Boys Mysteries on the screened porch of the family farm that summer between fourth and fifth grade. Or Catcher in the Rye the freshman fall that I fell in love with my high school english teacher.)

So you see, a novel is not something I can take up lightly in the chaos. So maybe it's a good sign that I wanted to read Carlos Ruiz Zafón's Shadow of the Wind as soon as I heard about it. A mysterious book about a mysterious book. I must be feeling better about life, even if only a little. And I am reading it deep into the morning, and I am dreaming about its heroes and its villains in the few hours it leaves me to dream. It has me thinking, already looking for what to read next. I am being drawn back in to the world of fiction.

I'll tell you nothing about the book itself. It is delicious. Avoid synopses; wade in. But I will tell you that I had to stop reading it, that I am waiting until the weekend to finish it, because then it matters less whether I get good sleep or not.

It tempted from the blue bedside table last night, gold-embossed spine catching the low light. But I was well prepared. At the ready was Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel. ("A jewel of civility, wit and insight," says the Baltimore Sun!) Less like liquor, more than milk, de Botton is a philosophical frappe. Truly yummy. He always makes me feel good. He always teaches me something. Last night I learned Chamfort's dictum "that a man must swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead." I smiled. Feeling sleep would be easy, I stacked de Botton atop Shadow of the Wind and turned out the light. "Almost the weekend," I whispered to husband Val. "Almost the weekend," he sighed back. And we fell asleep.



home paintings contact kate	[Prev: ] [Main Index] [Next: The NOAA says:] 05/27/2004 When life gets hard, I need a book that's like a glass of warm milk. I need historical epics and biographies of queens and theology texts and tracts on compassion by the Dalai Lama. Soothing reads to lead me gently into delicate and longed for sleep. A book to give my busy brain a taste of something diverting, dense and comforting, but not something so intriguing that I'll be reading at 4 a.m. And life has been hard, I guess, because I noticed last week that I hadn't read any new fiction in a long time. It's because I am a coward. It's because of the way it affects me. It's because — if what I've been reading is a glass of warm milk — a certain kind of novel is like a snifter of some exotic liquor — lens-clear, bending light and coloring everything. Tricky. Hypnotic. Volatile. Is it something to be inhaled? swallowed whole? sipped? Will it burn? Will it satisfy? Will it produce the sweetly drunken state that echoes with those first transporting feelings of reading? (Song of Hiawatha and Hardy Boys Mysteries on the screened porch of the family farm that summer between fourth and fifth grade. Or Catcher in the Rye the freshman fall that I fell in love with my high school english teacher.) So you see, a novel is not something I can take up lightly in the chaos. So maybe it's a good sign that I wanted to read Carlos Ruiz Zafón's Shadow of the Wind as soon as I heard about it. A mysterious book about a mysterious book. I must be feeling better about life, even if only a little. And I am reading it deep into the morning, and I am dreaming about its heroes and its villains in the few hours it leaves me to dream. It has me thinking, already looking for what to read next. I am being drawn back in to the world of fiction. I'll tell you nothing about the book itself. It is delicious. Avoid synopses; wade in. But I will tell you that I had to stop reading it, that I am waiting until the weekend to finish it, because then it matters less whether I get good sleep or not. It tempted from the blue bedside table last night, gold-embossed spine catching the low light. But I was well prepared. At the ready was Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel. ("A jewel of civility, wit and insight," says the Baltimore Sun!) Less like liquor, more than milk, de Botton is a philosophical frappe. Truly yummy. He always makes me feel good. He always teaches me something. Last night I learned Chamfort's dictum "that a man must swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead." I smiled. Feeling sleep would be easy, I stacked de Botton atop Shadow of the Wind and turned out the light. "Almost the weekend," I whispered to husband Val. "Almost the weekend," he sighed back. And we fell asleep.