The Sheila Variations

Re-discovery

The Washington Post occasionally runs a series called "Second Reading" which I love. "Second Reading" is about going back and re-discovering books from the past ... either books that were neglected and did not get the props they desired the first time around ... OR books beloeved by the book critic as a child, books now being given a "second reading".

Wonderful!

Here's a great column by book critic Jonathan Yardley on Washington Irving's Sketch Book. Beautiful.

What I love about this column, in particular, is his description of how that book is completely wound up in his childhood, in the memories of his father, in the landscape where he grew up (very near to where Irving's stories took place). I love that - it's how I feel about the books I loved as a kid, too. They have merged with my life. There is no difference between a "real-life" out-in-the-world event and the soul-growth I experienced when I first read Charlotte's Web, or Harriet the Spy. Same thing. Books wrapped up with life.

Lee Strasberg, the great acting teacher, used to say: "Sometimes you pick up a pair of your shoes, and in them you see your whole life."

Books are like that, too.

A brief excerpt from this lovely little column:

The point is proved by "The Sketch Book" itself, which has survived the years with remarkable resilience and undiminished pertinence, notwithstanding Irving's sentimental streak. But it is for the two great short stories that we are still most likely to read it, and in which we are still most likely to detect "the diligent dispensation of pleasure." Both are believed to be based on German folk tales, relocated by Irving to the Hudson Valley he loved and knew so well. The stories of Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane are as deeply ingrained in American mythology as those of George Washington and the cherry tree, Ben Franklin and his kite, Abraham Lincoln reading by firelight.

Posted by sheila