my friend Steve Burt's book about Randall Jarrell, I found this most amazing passage by Jarrell (from an unpublished lecture for librarians), which pretty much sums up my feelings only in more poetic language:
A shrew or a hummingbird eats half its weight in twenty-four hours; when I was a boy I read half my weight in a week. I went to school, played, did the things the grown-ups made me do; but no matter how little time I had left, there were never books enough to fill it--I lived on the ragged edge of having nothing to read.
I still live on the ragged edge of having nothing to read. It's the reason I could never live in a very remote location or a non-English-speaking country. Book supply problem.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
How I wish I could read that fast--I'm more likely to find myself feeling crushed by the weight of the accumulating books around me.
ReplyDeleteJarrell is often dazzling and this is a lovely, lovely, poignant moment--thank you for it.