A Thousand Selves

An elderly black man in a wheelchair asked about the "John Carter" novels. He enjoyed the movie (possibly the only one who did? :) [it bombed, as they say, at the box office] ) and wanted to read the books. I popped upstairs to grab a few for him to choose from, and we talked about some other adventure/science fiction novels he might also enjoy. He'd never heard of Robert B. Parker, so I grabbed a few of those for him, too. Impatiently waiting to see what he thinks, the next time I see him.
Laura, Associate Librarian

There's an older white dude who has recently been on a tear with John Irving novels. He's checked out everything we have and has even inter-library loaned a few titles from libraries around the country -- really obscure Irving novellas and short novels from before he was big. We've had some interesting conversations about what he likes in Irving, and I've suggested a few other authors for him to try, though he says he's going to read everything Irving first. He told me, "Now that I'm retired, all I seem to want to do anymore is read." It reminded me of the retired father in Ethan Canin's novel, America America (one of my favorites), who, after forty-five years of manual labor, retires, unexpectedly to his kids, into heavy-duty reading. I told the guy to keep on reading, and that I was furiously envious of him. Smiles and laughter all around. (Though I really am envious!)
Laura, Associate Librarian

This is going to sound unnecessarily dark, but once, years ago, my therapist asked if I was having suicidal thoughts. "No," I answered. Then, "Well, yes, sort of? Like, I think about how great it would be not to be myself anymore. Not to be dead, exactly, but to wake up and just be some different person."

That's a fairly universal feeling, I think, that occasional desire to be someone else... coupled with the knowledge that you can never really get outside of or away from your own maddening self.

Unless you are reading novels.

(Even then, of course, you're still reading with your Self, locked into your own experiences and perspective and prejudices and idiosyncratic knowledge or ignorance.)

Encountering stories -- in novels, memoirs, narrative movies or documentaries -- is a surefire way to lift yourself out of your Self, if only momentarily, and become someone else. A thousand someone elses, in fact.

I've always been a reader, a consumer of stories (though tellingly, when I was talking to that therapist, I'd stopped reading for a few months), but for many people, that reading bug doesn't really kick in until they are older, often in retirement.

Both of these gentlemen I helped were older, in their 70s or later, if I had to guess, and yet they were living great adventures, being other people, through their reading. If we're lucky, librarians get to help people make those connections -- and sometimes, we just get to participate at the fringes, and watch it happen. These experiences were a little bit of both, I suppose, though mostly the second. I was just happy to be involved in some small way.

Not without coincidence, instead of completing various household and grad-school tasks, I spent a great part of today reading Jonathan Dee's latest novel, A Thousand Pardons, luxuriating in the lives of people not myself. One general theme of the novel relates to guilt and contrition and redemption (as the title suggests), but the other, more pressing theme is about the very thing I'm writing around -- wanting to get outside the box of who you are... and then realizing you can't, but that reaching out to other people helps.