Our Craft is More Modest
January 15, 2011
Happily, most readers fall between these two drastic extremes. Most of us neither shun books in veneration of literature, nor shun literature in veneration of books. Our craft is more modest. We pick our way down endless library shelves, choosing this or that volume for no discernible reason: because of a cover, a title, a name, because of something someone said or didn’t say, because of a hunch, a whim, a mistake, because we think we may find in this book a particular tale or character or detail, because we believe it was written for us, because we believe it was written for everyone except us and we want to find out why we were excluded, because we want to learn, or laugh, or lose ourselves in oblivion.
-Anne Fadiman, Rereadings
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I love this. I’m going to copy it out to keep. :)
Doesn’t she have a way with words? :)
Love this! I need to see if my library has this one. I loved her first set of essays on reading.
Unfortunately, this is from the foreward; she just edited the collection, so the essays are by all different people. I found it to be disappointing, but there were a couple gems.
Anne Fadiman is my goddess.
I’m contemplating a reread of Ex Libris this year!
That makes me feel so much better about myself. I shall stop beating myself up for not reading classics all the time.
Oh good! You should never feel guilty about your reading!
She really captures well all those diverse and little reasons why we pick up a book.
Didn’t she? :)
Beautiful thoughts!
I love Fadiman’s prose!
“because we believe it was written for everyone except us and we want to find out why we were excluded”
This made me smile. Yup, been there before.
I’ve been there too. :)
‘…because of a hunch, a whim, a mistake…’ – that’s how I find most books! – that way, and more recently on wonderful blogs like yours. Loved your vlog too…it’s nice to meet you in person at least that way! :)
(Appreciated your kind thoughts last week… it was all sudden and scary, but my dad is much better!)
I love love love love love this. Thanks for sharing!
What a lovely quote! She really did nail every good reason for picking up a book. It me yearn to wander up and down the aisles of the library (alas I’m at work … with no good book in site … sigh).
Fantastic quote and so, so true!