
I read a short book, long ago, by a man in or nearing retirement. The man had made a life out of studying literature.
This is my recollection, anyway. It was so long ago that I no longer remember the title or author of the book. I think the author was affiliated with the University of Michigan, but this could be a mistaken memory.
But I do clearly remember that this venerable man had a complaint: a lament as he moved toward retirement.
He had read everything good, he explained. There was nothing good left to read. He was doomed to live out the rest of his days reading subpar works.
Wisdom?
Hogwash.
The older I get, the more I realize how much I haven’t read, but would like to. And the more I realize how much I’d like to reread. How many times can one reread Hamlet without gaining something new from the experience? And fabulous modern works are being written and published literally all the time.
I look forward to sharing with you more of my fab finds in the realm of literature!
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Speaking of fab—thanks to some great psychiatric meds and truly phenomenal, award-winning friends, I am starting to get my life back on track.
See you soon. ❤
I once felt that perhaps I might have read all of the really good books and that there were none left to read in my old ago. I “on purpose” didn’t read Don Quixote, so that I would have at least one good book left to read. But then I had Carlos Fuentes as a professor at Penn, and he insisted that I had to save another book for my old age, not Don Quixote. Now I have a wonderful friend, Jessica Weissman, who reads all the good and almost good books. She alerts me when another really good book comes along. And so do you, Liza, Akhtar’s Homeland Elegies showed up at my door and I couldn’t figure out why. That was your influence, Liza. May your health continue to improve. Thank you.
I confess, I have had the same fear. . . . But I came to a different realization, as I wrote in this post. Funny about the Don Quixote! Glad you didn’t wait too long on the Don Quixote. š And oh, I so loved the Akhtar. Literature at its finest, imho . . .
Yes to re-reading! And glad to see you back in this space.
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