Passages from Cynthia Ozick's Heir to the Glimmering World that made me want to scrawl in the margin of the library book the words "IT'S SO TRUE!" (but I did not):
"He cared (though not crucially) about the opinion of his colleagues and acquaintances, and would send out a stream of self-castigation in order, he hoped, to nip their condemnation in the bud. His intention was to arrive at his own condemnation fast and first. It was a kind of exculpation. No one condemned him; no one paid much attention. My father had, as far as I could see, no friends."
(Oh and Dad, that's true of me, not you.)
"I had dreamt of Gothic arches and the worn flagstones of old libraries - where such a grand yearning came from, I hardly knew. Unaccountably, my heart was set on Smith or Vassar or Bryn Mawr; I imagined afternoon teas, and white gloves, and burning lips (mine, perhaps) murmuring out of a book. But that was all wistfulness - there was no money for such romantic hopes..."
(Me again...)
"My suitcases held only the sparest handful of the books I valued, since it had always been my habit - privately I felt it to be an ecstasy - to enter, as into a mysterious vault, any public library. I was drawn to books that had been read before, novels that girls like myself ... had cradled and cherished. In my mind - I suppose in my isolation - I seized on all those previous readers, and everyone who would read after me - as phantom companions and secret friends."
(Aaand me.)
Posted by rachel at March 24, 2008 05:29 PM