This is from Barb:
It is interesting that so many of us have selected books from our childhood or books that touched us emotionally. It seems almost parental and protective-to save not only stories as if they were fragile beings but also our most cherished memories. Because you could expand this discussion from "what books would you save" to "what movies would you save?" "What song would you save?" And finally, what memory would you save?
There was a movie out only a year or so ago from Japan that posited the idea that after death, you could choose one memory from your life and stay within it for eternity. I wish I could remember the name of this movie. But the idea of staying within one memory is too limiting. I prefer staying within one book. That is something that has enough texture to hold the restless human spirit.
The books I would choose all seem to come from times of awakening and transition. I'd pick "Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenter!" by J.D. Salinger because it showed me how writing can be as intimate and real as a human voice sitting next to you. I'd choose Doris Lessing's Stories (about South African post World War II) or The Four-Gated City because I read them right after meeting Leah and it spoke to our questions of being female and political and adventurous in the 80s.
Or how about from high school-another time of great awakening: I'd pick Tom Stoppards' play "Travesties" because after seeing it with my class (in repertory with "The Importance of Being Earnest') I was drunk on the beauty of words. Or my discovery in junior high school that political campaigns made amazing narratives after reading Theodore H. White's "The Making of the President, 1960." Or those early feminist classics that changed my life: "Sisterhood is Powerful" or "Gyn/Ecology" or Kate Millet's "Sexual Politics" or Andrea Dworkin's "Woman Hating." For a long time I divided the world into people who had those books on their shelves and people who didn't.
Finally, there are short stories I've read that are like the perfect memory-short moments that linger deeply, like an evening with your best friend who lives far away, in which the meal is tasty, the weather inviting, the living room cozy, and the conversation and laughter lasts for hours. Short stories are like that: they are the life equivalent of a perfect evening rather than a lengthy vacation or journey. I'd have to do more research to put together the definitive list, but it would include "Spyglass" from "Mama Makes Up Her Mind" by Bailey White, a story called "Getting the Facts of Life" by Paulette Childress White from Memories of Kin, essays on American politics by Gore Vidal, short stories by Carson McCullers and even Truman Capote. I'd have to be a literary jukebox-one from each, short and sweet like a chrome tabletop jukebox in a highway diner.
It is interesting that so many of us have selected books from our childhood or books that touched us emotionally. It seems almost parental and protective-to save not only stories as if they were fragile beings but also our most cherished memories. Because you could expand this discussion from "what books would you save" to "what movies would you save?" "What song would you save?" And finally, what memory would you save?
There was a movie out only a year or so ago from Japan that posited the idea that after death, you could choose one memory from your life and stay within it for eternity. I wish I could remember the name of this movie. But the idea of staying within one memory is too limiting. I prefer staying within one book. That is something that has enough texture to hold the restless human spirit.
The books I would choose all seem to come from times of awakening and transition. I'd pick "Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenter!" by J.D. Salinger because it showed me how writing can be as intimate and real as a human voice sitting next to you. I'd choose Doris Lessing's Stories (about South African post World War II) or The Four-Gated City because I read them right after meeting Leah and it spoke to our questions of being female and political and adventurous in the 80s.
Or how about from high school-another time of great awakening: I'd pick Tom Stoppards' play "Travesties" because after seeing it with my class (in repertory with "The Importance of Being Earnest') I was drunk on the beauty of words. Or my discovery in junior high school that political campaigns made amazing narratives after reading Theodore H. White's "The Making of the President, 1960." Or those early feminist classics that changed my life: "Sisterhood is Powerful" or "Gyn/Ecology" or Kate Millet's "Sexual Politics" or Andrea Dworkin's "Woman Hating." For a long time I divided the world into people who had those books on their shelves and people who didn't.
Finally, there are short stories I've read that are like the perfect memory-short moments that linger deeply, like an evening with your best friend who lives far away, in which the meal is tasty, the weather inviting, the living room cozy, and the conversation and laughter lasts for hours. Short stories are like that: they are the life equivalent of a perfect evening rather than a lengthy vacation or journey. I'd have to do more research to put together the definitive list, but it would include "Spyglass" from "Mama Makes Up Her Mind" by Bailey White, a story called "Getting the Facts of Life" by Paulette Childress White from Memories of Kin, essays on American politics by Gore Vidal, short stories by Carson McCullers and even Truman Capote. I'd have to be a literary jukebox-one from each, short and sweet like a chrome tabletop jukebox in a highway diner.
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on Wednesday, October 16, 2002 at 10:58 AM.
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