Hello! Hello!
Today’s newsletter has nothing to do with food. No recipes. No tips. It’s about something that came to mind and set me thinking. And if you think along with me, I’d love to hear your suggestions. Here’s what’s been popping around in my brain …
Sometime in my twenties, mid-twenties? Later? How nice that I can’t remember. I was — wait for it, because I’m sure I’m the only one who was ever in this situation — confused. I just didn’t know what I wanted to do with my (one wild and precious) life and I spun in circles. I made myself unhappy, I made Michael more unhappy, and I just couldn’t unspin. I was so wrapped up in myself, my worries, my insecurities, that I was unbearably selfish. That I knew I was being selfish — self-centered and boring — only made it worse. I needed a respite from myself and I wasn’t sure how to get it when a friend said, “Read a book that’s bigger than you are.”
What’s odd is that I woke up last week thinking about this (could it be because I broke my patella — the cute name for a kneecap — and I’m on crutches and feeling sorry for myself?). And then the newsletter from The Guardian Feast (reposted here) arrived and there was Yotam Ottolenghi writing about how he recovered his cooking groove. (Yes, even Yotam Ottolenghi’s mojo can dip.) Maybe it’s a form of life confusion, maybe it’s not, but I think that his remedy works for regaining all kinds of creativity. Ottolenghi writes: We need difference and distance, between ourselves and everything we know. Not the same as reading a book that’s bigger than you are — although we all know that we can find difference and distance in books — but again, not so divergent. I could feel the universe weaving a theme.
And then, I went to Scott’s, our local farmstand — I’m so happy that they’re open for the season — and had a great talk with Scott Lavezzoli. Scott is a serious reader. And while it’s near impossible for him to read when the market is in full swing, he’s told me that he sets reading goals for himself during the off season. When I asked him what he’d read in the dark months, he said Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust. (Note to self: bring Scott madeleines.)
As I confessed when I gave you the recipe for madeleines, I’ve never read Proust. Not from lack of trying — I tried. More than once. But now, maybe now is my moment.
Not because I’m unhappy. Not because I’m more confused than I usually am (I think I’m in a perpetual state of questioning). Not because I don’t have ideas about my life. But because reading is a pleasure. A path to difference and distance, and another way to spark creativity.
During that upside-down turned-around time in my twenties, I remember reading Emma and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert, and Lost Illusions by Honoré Balzac. (scroll down)
What would I read today? I might turn to biography or memoir these days. Could I really tackle Swann’s Way?
What would you read if you were looking for a book that is bigger than you are?
I really want to know.
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At age 78 I am reading The Chronicles of Narnia. Last year I read A Wrinkle in Time.
Always, always, always "Moby-Dick." I've read and re-read it multiple times, and return to it every few years. It's going to get me through the heat and humidity of this Nashville summer — but with new inspiration, since I just returned from time on Cape Cod (awash in whaling history and "Moby-Dick" lore). p.s. Tip... If anyone needs a little convincing on tackling it, Nathaniel Philbrick's slim little volume "Why Read Moby-Dick" is a delight.