Today I was browsing through some book lists online—the 100 best English-language novels of the twentieth century compiled by The Board of the Modern Library, a division of Random House (http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0776722.html); the top 100 works of world literature, compiled by the Norwegian Book Club (http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0934958.html); kids’ top 100 books (http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0934911.html); teachers’ top 100 books for children (http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0934913.html); the 100 best characters in fiction since 1900 (http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0932846.html); and the 100 best first lines of novels (http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0934311.html)--and I was thinking how few of these novels I have actually read. I’ve always been a big reader and lately I’ve been drawing even more pleasure from reading than I can ever remember. I’ve developed a heightened appreciation for beautiful prose, especially poetic prose, to the point where I get giddy from particularly well-expressed lines and wordsmithery. Lately I’ve developed this habit of marking the pages in which this occurs and later transcribing the orgasmic passages, so I can read them over and over again and just marvel. I suppose I can attribute this appreciation to my growing realization that this is a skill I will never have. In fact, I butcher words. If ideas were trees, my writing would first hack the darn thing down into matchstick pieces and then cover them with grotesque graffiti and putrid garbage. And though it makes me a little sad, I am content enough with this. I don’t have the patience to write, anyway. I was always about the quick first (and final) draft in college. The point is, I am a novel enthusiast. Whole-heartedly. But today, looking at these lists, I suddenly realized how unadventurous of a reader I am. Sure, I’ve read a lot of books…but many of them over and over again. I’ve read embarrassingly few of these works listed as THE best in the English language. What kind of book lover am I, anyway?
And this got me thinking on a related topic—it’s not just books where I lack daring. To my core, I am someone who hugs the familiar, whether it be a particular routine (which I MUST have, btw), meals at certain restaurants (sadly, I have a “usual” at every restaurant I’ve been to), clothing brands, etc. So even when I do reach beyond myself and go to South Africa, say, or Korea, or California, I quickly find my home within it and seldom venture out. In all three places I’ve seen far less than I intended, done much fewer things…in short, in some ways I might as well have been home. I try to counter it, but that inertia, man…why mess with things when I’m comfortable?
This tendency to homebodiness is something I’ve identified as less than desirous, but it clings to me yet. So perhaps books at least can be a good first step. My friend Janaki has lent me a few books that I’ve never read before that are, coincidentally, almost all considered some of the “best” of the English language. The Southeast Asia trip, too, was an excellent countermovement; however, when I think of my upcoming trip across Eurasia, solo, I am getting cold feet. I MUST NOT WIMP OUT.
To close, here are some things that have made me laugh in the last couple days:
1. Today two of my female sixth-grade students wrote the following poem:
Pretty
By Hye Jung Kim and Ji Sun Ro
Pretty
Beautiful face
We are so pretty.
Girl queen.
Yepuda.
2. On Wednesday, two other female sixth grade students, Da Hye and Ji ____(I can’t believe I forgot her name!), were newly lamenting the fact that I don’t eat meat. They told me I’d never develop an S-line, the Korean standard for a hot figure which refers to the shape made by the breasts and the booty from the side. They are probably right, though I’m sure it has less to do with the fact that I am vegetarian than my genetic disposition to a pear-like figure combined with less-than-adequate exercise. I think I am more of a lower-case d with a fat vertical line. Or a spoon, even.
3. Two of my second-grade girls came to see me—bother me, actually, when I was trying to get ready for a class—and while jabbering away in unintelligible Korean (I can make this value judgment as a non-native speaker, of course J), one girl pointed to her leg. We’d been working on body parts vocabulary, so I thought maybe she wanted to know the name for it. Plus, I was being deliberately cheeky, hoping to drive them away. I said, “Thigh,” and she said, “Six, seven!”