In those two weeks, I read The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster) and Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgommery) for the first time, completely unaware that they would change my life more than "All My Children" or meeting my second cousins.
Admittedly, some thirty years later, I cannot tell you exactly how, other than making a trip to Green Gables National Park on Prince Edward Island a must, they changed my life, but they did. I know they did because I am sitting here smiling*** as I contemplate these books. I guess I would liken reading both to meeting great friends. My life is better for them being a part of it.
Neither book was such a great friend when I first encountered them. Reading Anne was slow and arduous. It was long, old-fashioned and grown up. The plot moves slowly, most incidents are tangential, and it is full of words that I just didn't know. I don't think I even cried that first time (I cry every time now). I'm pretty sure I only finished it because I thought I should have already read it years previously. Somehow though, forcing myself to learn about antimacassars and gables was enjoyable enough to read the next book, and the next, and I was whipping through the Anne books at great speed by the time I accidentally left one in Canada a year later. I had finished all of Anne and was immersed in Emily while in France two years later.
The Phantom Tollbooth was breezy by comparison, but I don't think I "got" it any more. The book is composed, almost entirely, of puns. I'm not sure I caught any of them at ten. I even missed jumping to Conclusions the first time. The Phantom Tollbooth includes a which (yes, a which, not a witch) named "Faintly Macabre." I read it as Mack-a-BREE, some weirdo name I didn't know, until senior year of high school. Still, the book is fabulous.I'm failing here at both explaining how these books stuck with me, or writing about the actual writing in any meaningful way. Amateur Reader long ago challenged me to write about Anne without sentimentality and I still find that I can't (or, rather, won't). These books are my "beloved bears" (his term), and I'm not up for criticism of my teddy bears. Maybe I'll have more luck with What the Witch Left (second grade), Voyage of the Dawn Treader (fourth grade), Bridge to Terabithia (fifth grade) or A Ring of Endless Light (sixth grade), but I'm not optimistic. Stayed tuned if you are so inclined.
*When the Lawn Lake Dam broke in Rocky Mountain National Park, some backpackers were swept away from the campsite we had been sleeping at three days prior. By the time the dam broke, however, I was at home in the suburbs. It didn't affect me much at the time, but now I choke up a little every time I see the still-scarred hillside when I come down Trail Ridge Road.
**Not to imply that I was skinny before that. Part of the reason that I remember the time in Illinois as being so much longer than the actual two and a half weeks, was that I recall clothes that I took not fitting by the end. I was thinking that was impossible until I've watched some ten and eleven year-olds grow recently and remember how many shoe sizes (from a 6 to 10?) I jumped in fifth grade. It is completely possible that my stomach and hips expanded overnight in the middle of that July.
***A more happy, more deliberate, smile than my neutral face, which is apparently also a smile.
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5 comments:
Checking the record, I do not believe I challenged you specifically to write about Anne in any particular way, but rather said I would enjoy it if someone would help me place the novel in its tradition.
I mean, presumably someone has.
AR- Details, details. You can hardly be the challenging foil of my imagination and the relation who is supportive of whatever angle I choose to approach books, if you go and actually check the record. In my recollection, you challenged me, specifically, to treat Anne as literature, rather than a friend. True, enough, you didn't specifically challenge me, but I insist on thinking that you did. I don't know what it says about me that I am enough of a scientist to link to the actual evidence.
Oh, and every time I try to get rid of that horrid highlighting, it only gets worse, so I am just going to leave it as is for now. Good thing I am not a professional blogger, or blogging for a grade.
I suppose it would be sentimental as well for me to say that Anne as a book was special because Anne as a character was special. She was a hero like little girl books don't often see. And I think it helped that it was over our heads, she introduced all kinds of words and ways of thinking.
I read Anne somewhere around 9 years old and again before we went to PEI when I was 10. And phantom tollbooth remains a favorite book. It was read to us by an awesome librarian in 3rd or 4th grade I think.
Now I want to go read them again :)
Beth
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