Reading Archives - A Geography of Reading

Celebrating Christmas with Literature

December 22, 2013 by Isla McKetta, MFA 4 Comments

You might have guessed, reading was a very important part of my upbringing and the holidays were no exception. Besides the requisite viewings of whatever interpretation of A Christmas Carol we were ready for that year, I always remember my dad reading aloud to us on Christmas Eve. It’s a tradition I brought with me as I made a new home in Seattle.

The Gift of the Magi

“One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.” – “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry

So this year, as in all the years past (and future?), I will be snuggled up by our tree with some cider reading aloud to my husband. The set list hasn’t even varied. I’ll start with O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” and weep my eyes out. The “the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house” has always touched me very deeply and every year I better understand how wise Della and Jim were in their love and their sacrifice.

Christ Climbed Down

“Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck creches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery”
– “Christ Climbed Down” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Once I’ve somewhat recovered, I’ll pull out Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind, turn to page 69, and read “Christ Climbed Down.” In the twinkling light of our (natural) tree, I’ll think about what’s important to me about the holiday. I wasn’t raised with religion (although I dragged my mom to a different church every Christmas and Easter), so I don’t really have a relationship with the Baby Jesus (even though I display a creche every year). That makes it especially important for me to question my relationship with the commercial Christmas and Ferlinghetti’s poem is the perfect start.

I’m missing my “clever cornball relatives” already.

Regardless of how you spend the holidays (and which holidays you celebrate), I hope the coming days find you snug and surrounded by love. And if your holiday traditions involve books, I’d love to hear about your favorites in the comments.

On Lyn Hejinian and Reading Out of Your Depth

August 18, 2013 by Isla McKetta, MFA 4 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with a friend about our mutual interest in Buddhism. She recommended I read Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha and I asked if she’d read the works of Thích Nhất Hạnh. We agreed that neither of us really understood him, but I said what I like most about his work is precisely that I don’t understand it and that every time I re-read one of his books, I take from it what I need that day, regardless of what’s on the page. That’s how I felt reading My Life and My Life in the Nineties by Lyn Hejinian.

Drowning in a Book

“I imagine a foreign language to be like a thin stick over a creek, one must run on it with great speed so it won’t have time to break and without stopping for a second so one won’t lose one’s balance.” – Lyn Hejinian

I’d been told that My Life and My Life in the Nineties was a difficult book. I don’t think that’s strictly accurate. What the book is is fragmentary. Each of the poems or sections or essays, whatever you want to call them seems at first to be a series of disconnected sentences. But I ran head first into the book, determined to achieve that perfect balance of comprehension and enjoyment. I found myself immersed in a collection of reminiscences, and even though I could not put together the narrative, I could feel Hejinian’s life moving forward in time as I progressed through the sections.

Finding Inspiration Anywhere

“I can type faster when I don’t hear my hands.” – Lyn Hejinian

As I was reading into this book, looking for that narrative I’m so accustomed to, I found myself grasping onto individual sentences but not in the way you’d think. Instead of clutching a gnarled sentence for meaning as I would with a writer like Faulkner, I was holding onto some of Hejinian’s clear sentences as they pulled me up out of the ocean of her book and into the surface of my own writing.

Let me explain that. Normally, when the style of a book pulls you out of the narrative, that’s a bad thing for flow and surrendering to the fictional dream, and all so on. But because I was happily wandering through this book without really knowing where I was, I was glad to stop when I encountered a sentence that reminded me of something from my own life.

If I’d been in a writing frame of mind, My Life would have been the single greatest set of writing prompts I’d ever encountered. Lines like, “Because children will spill food, one needs a dog” sparked memories from my childhood and I had a visceral feeling of having food licked off of my face. Different sentences will speak to different people, but over and over as I read the book, I could feel long-lost memories igniting.

What’s the Difference Between Prose and a Prose Poem?

“Consciousness is durable in poetry.” – Lyn Hejinian

I’m not a student of poetics, but what Hejinian showed me in My Life and My Life in the Nineties is that one big difference between prose poems and prose is whether narrative is a main thrust of the writing or not. The passages in the second part of the book, My Life in the Nineties, contained more contiguous sentences in the same narrative stream and the section read faster for me, but this book is still for me much more about the language than the narrative.

Another thing I came to appreciate in this book is the way Hejinian uses particular sentences as refrains. I was well into the book before I realized that some of her sentences felt familiar. I started reading closer and marking the ones I recognized. I couldn’t discern an intentional pattern, but they did feel like a key to another way to read this book. It was as though those sentences were the triangles on a sewing pattern and when I pulled the writing into three dimensions I would connect those triangles and appreciate a completely other creation.

“Please note that in my attempt to increase the accuracy of these sentences and the persistence and velocity with which they proceed, I’m pursuing change while trying to outrun the change that’s pursuing me.” – Lyn Hejinian

Reading out of your depth can be frustrating or it can be the most wonderful thing ever. I highly recommend that you pick a day where you have nothing pressing and the world will leave you alone, and then pick up a book you always thought was beyond your ken. Read the book for whatever strikes you. There is no wrong answer and there will be no test at the end. Let me know what you discover.

If you need some fresh inspiration, pick up a copy of My Life and My Life in the Nineties from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Conscientious Listening: The Pleasure of Being Read to

August 20, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

Being read to is a pleasure that most people will not experience after childhood. My father was an excellent reader. He did all the voices and never shied from long books (I’ve only ever “read” The Lord of the Rings trilogy with my dad pronouncing every word). Everyone should be read to as a child. But when was the last time you shared this joy with an adult?

Why My Husband is Reading to Me

My husband and I both love books even though we read at very different speeds. And with my terrible memory, by the time he gets around to reading something I loved, I’ve forgotten the best parts.

After buying the first book of Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s The Strain for his Kindle, my husband fell in love with the book. The thing about the Kindle is that until I get one, I can’t read the book unless I steal his. And I’m still really devoted to paper books. When he offered to read the book aloud to me, I was gobsmacked and grateful.

We’ve spent subsequent evenings in the living room (that’s what we call the room without the TV, even though we hardly live in it) as he reads eagerly on. He’s pre-reading the book because he can’t contain his excitement, but also because it’s difficult to do a cold reading aloud. Some nights he reads to me when we get home and again after dinner. One night he read straight through for almost two hours until he was hoarse and I made him stop.

I am loving the attention and the time together. I’m loving our discussions before, during, and after.

How Being Read to is Affecting My Writing

Being read to is changing my relationship with language. I look at words day and night. I read. I edit. I write. I move commas and think about substituting words. I dread an especially long paragraph in a dull book and count pages until the end. I sneak peeks of endings.

I can’t do any of these things when my husband is reading to me. Instead, I watch his mouth forming the words and I encounter the words in a space where I can’t see them. I see the pictures the words are drawing (I’m sure Derrida or Foucault would have a more intelligent way of describing this). Having him read to me is helping me engage with the story (and especially the imagery) in a different way.

When it comes down to writing, I feel freer. I can focus more on what the words are supposed to do than on what they are. I know that I remember the trail of biological matter swept across the inside of that plane rather than any of the words that were specifically used. As a writer, words are my tools and they are important, but I feel like sometimes I oil and polish my screwdrivers without ever actually putting them to proper use.

The Problem with Books on Tape

The one way that many adults still experience being read to is through books on tape. My husband and I have shared the joy of being read to during road trips. We’ve listened to mysteries and classics from readers good and poor. Listening to The Lord of the Rings while crossing Utah even changed the geography I associate with the books.

Books on tape are a great way to experience a book when you are doing something else. Except that we are always doing something else. They work for me on road trips because there is the meditative quality of driving. But I can’t imagine listening to one in traffic. And when I’ve tried listening to books while gardening, my mind is equally split between the two tasks.

The problem with books on tape is a problem with the listener (me). In this busy, busy life, it’s hard to imagine allowing myself to sit still and focus on the story when I know my hands could be doing something else. When my husband reads to me, I can appreciate the gift of energy he’s putting into storytelling. I try to repay him with the gift of attention.

Reading to My Husband

I may have started this whole reading aloud thing last summer. We were waiting in a backyard hammock for a meteor shower and I was as restless as usual. I went inside and grabbed The Arabian Nights and started reading him stories. We haven’t gotten very far in the months since, but I hope soon to return the reading favor.

What I Want for You

When my husband started reading aloud to me, I justified the guilty pleasure with thoughts of all the readers Jorge Luis Borges must have listened to after he went blind. I wondered if that was part of the genius of his writing. But there should be no guilt in sharing a story and I’m eagerly awaiting my next chapter.

Here’s your homework. Ask someone to read to you. Or read to someone else. You don’t have to start with a full novel—a short story or poem will do. If you have kids, read to them but also try this with an adult. Recapture the magic of oral story telling. Reencounter language in its many forms. Relate to another person by share the special gifts of attention, time, and story. I hope reading aloud will bring you as much pleasure as it’s brought us.

If this review made you want to read the book aloud, pick up a copy of The Strain from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.