Tell me what you've read!
When I first thought to look in the Aspen library for recorded books (February
1996, because I suspected the whole trilogy was available, after The
Hobbit), I saw The Two Towers, but I had not reread The Lord
of the Rings in so long that of course I had to begin with The Fellowship
of the Ring. So I came away that day with Barbara Tuchman's A
Distant Mirror. I didn't go to Aspen again for four months, because
CLH moved back to Boston in April,
but when I did go, in June of 1996, it was when my then-job was at its lowest
ebb and I had to pack her apartment in a day and was generally feeling quite
low. Actually the story of that weekend
is a quite good one. So in a lull at Mailboxes, Etc., I scurried up to the library.
And joy of joys, all three were in. But Aspen has only a two-week lending period.
I asked a librarian if there was any way for me to have the books for longer
than a fortnight--The Lord of the Rings is seventy-two hours or so, which
is almost one quarter of a fortnight's hours. Ah, but I forgot this was Aspen.
She told me they have a vacation loan period and you can name your return date.
So I did. And it was good.
June and July 1996
At first I thought I wasn't liking it because of the reader, who sounded
like a female Hank Williams. Then I decided I didn't like it because it
sucked. If it had been me ninety years ago, this would never have been beloved
enough to encourage sequels and thus the movie never would have happened.
Therefore I'm glad I wasn't around ninety years ago. All the movie and book
seem to have in common is the title, anyway.
Recorded Books Incorporated, read by Flo Gibson
June 1996
Yeah, spank me, so it's trite. But it's not trite. It is well written,
or carefully so, and delightful; it is comforting and familiar and not a
bodice-ripper. It is also not Dostoevsky. In the last weeks of the worst
job I have ever had, when I was doing no work and was not enjoying a lot
of mutual dislike, I played this in the background. Company, reassurance,
a voice; and if I zoned (or, miracle of miracles, had something to do),
it's not as if I could lose the thread of the story.
May 1996
I hadn't read this for a couple of years and it deserves frequent rereading.
So I plucked it up. Like Norman Maclean's
and Tolkien's, this story is written
for the ear. Hurston's metaphors are lyrical and so fresh. Tragic as it
is, this is one of the most uplifting books I know.
May 1996
I have very loosely applied rule that I should listen only to books I
wouldn't otherwise read, like George Eliot and Victor Hugo. Or at least
books I need to reread. At least I'm in no danger of Crichton. This book,
admittedly, blows that rule out of the water. Ahh, but now I've heard,
instead of only sight-read, Tony sing "Darling Clementine" backward.
April 1996
EKH taught me about Annie
Dillard and I have always been grateful for that. Just about my favorite
and most sustaining subject to read is writers writing about writing. I
also like narratives that blend the lines. This is a memoir, maybe not as
rigorous a genre as biography, and a little essay, and the source of everything
later. The image of a moth paralyzed with amniotic fluid speaks volumes.
April 1996
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