A Reading Memory

 

The Reading Room

"To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.” - Henry David Thoreau

Classical music was playing every evening. It was warm and inviting – a place to relax and read. I do not remember how often I went there, but from the first time I discovered the room I always felt comfortable there. It was an oasis in the midst of a bustling and boundless campus.

Virginia Woolf wrote about “A Room of One's Own” that was necessary for thinking and writing. For my reading I found that all I required was a book, preferably a good one, and a comfortable chair, merely a corner one might call one's own. There were many such corners available within the confines of the expansive campus of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Wisconsin in the late 1960's. First, there was my room, not always my own room for I shared one during my undergraduate years and even during my first year of graduate school. The room usually provided at least one corner, but there was the library, or rather the libraries since there were several libraries available for my use. Each of the libraries offered many corners for reading. However, ultimately the most elegant, inviting, relaxing, and refreshing corner was in The Reading Room at the Memorial Union.

Top Ten Tuesday:

 A Reader’s Manifesto

Today’s top ten Tuesday is more of an invitation to reflect —  Jana asks us why we like to read. 

My answer to this question starts at home. Before my parents had children (myself and my younger sister) they had books (and a dog). I was born into a house of readers and the rest is history. While I'm sure I was encouraged my memory goes back to the first books that I enjoyed - they became the core of my own library.

My earliest reading memories included the fairy tales of Andersen, the Grimm brothers, and others. But central to my reading life was the duo of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass. Encouraged by a father who enjoyed science fiction I soon began to devour that genre while my mother preferred mysteries which I would not immediately enjoy, but have done so more recently.

The home environment was encouraging and my own desire for reading seemed to have no bounds for it included books ranging from history to science to biography in addition to fiction. While amassing my own personal library, my sister and I were regular patrons of the local town library. We enjoyed the walk to and from the library in our home town and would visit the library in our Grandmother's home town each summer when our family visited her.

So once started I can only recall that my love of reading was engendered by the wonder of what the world outside of a small town in rural Wisconsin was like. The histories of Kings and Queens, whether from the Old Testament of the Bible (as in the above scene from the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife) or those of England gave me endless delight. While the stories of heroes and heroines both young and old like Jane Eyre, Robinson Crusoe, Jim Hawkins, Tom Sawyer, and Mowgli, just to name a few, kept me reading into the night. 

An author and reader I discovered more recently, Anna Quindlen, describes my feelings better than I can:

"We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else’s mind." 

Life-Long Learning

Film Societies and More

"As much as I love books and the theater, I think the cinema is a uniquely modern medium that we look to for the stories of our times." - Christopher Nolan



In these days we have Netflix and on-line downloading of movies.  Because I subscribe I was recently delighted and very deeply moved by Everlasting Moments, a film directed by Jan Troell.  

However, more than forty years ago when I was a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison we had film societies. It was the age before home video, in that era student film societies were all the rage. Classic and foreign films were shown in classrooms after hours, hosted by groups such as the Wisconsin Film Society, Fertile Valley, Praeteorius, Phoenix and El Dorado.

This was my own introduction to the films of Bergman and the great French auteurs including Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Agnès Varda, Jacques Demy, and Alain Resnais. Graduate student Russell Campbell even started his own film journal to cover the phenomenon, "The Velvet Light Trap", which has become a leading peer-reviewed journal for film and television studies.  The Wisconsin Union presented films as well, and they continue to do so today under the aegis of the WUD Film Committee. 

The film societies did not neglect the American cinema either, and my memories include shockers like "Wait Until Dark" with Audrey Hepburn and "Night of the Living Dead" directed by George Romero.  There were also literary adaptations like "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" with Alan Arkin.  This was part of my education as much as the formal classes, the Badger Marching Band and Wind Ensemble, the Memorial Library, and Saturday mornings listening to LPs of Shostakovich and others at the Madison Public Library.  It was a wonderful place to be young and learn.  It was the beginning for a life-long learner.

Running and Postcards

Yesterday I went downtown and met with three of my former co-workers for lunch at Ceres Cafe. It was good to see Marty, Randy and Kyle (the only fellow retiree) and we had a splendid get together over lunch. Kyle is a marathoner and has encouraged my running from the beginning with mixed results. I've developed consistency in running regularly but have yet to expand into the nether regions of marathon distances (or even half-marathons). He mentioned that he enjoyed my irregular commentaries on running and then noted that his wife Kathy had received a postcard with the results of her performance in the Proud to Run 10k/5k held earlier in the summer. I had participated with them in that run so it was with some anticipation that I looked for my postcard in the mail. It was therefore no surprise when I found it in the afternoon mail along with the current issue of Runners' Magazine and the other typical junk mail.

In addition to sharing congratulations with me "on a great race" the card informed me that I finished fourth in my age division (60-64) and I was not the last runner among the either the male runners or all of the finishers (somewhere in the middle of the back of the pack!). This was encouraging news and with the official time for my run gave me a bar to set as a goal for next year - something for which to look forward. Sending the postcard may seem like a small thing, but it is a nice touch to bring closure to the race and it is more than any other organized run in which I've participated has provided. While some have sent email reminders that information is available on-line that is not quite as personal. Thus this simple postcard helped me recall the good time I had running in the sun and sharing time with my friends on that pleasant summer day. A small moment in time, but memorable nonetheless.

Reunion

A reunion is a time for reminiscing and reflection on the past. It is also an opportunity to meet old friends and share experiences. Last night I attended my fortieth high school reunion and did some of the above. The overall result was a good time for most, if not all, and certainly for me. Meeting friends unseen for a decade or more was wonderful and renewing current friendships in person was even better. The most moving moment of the evening for me was when I reviewed a table of memorabilia that the organizers had displayed. There, amongst some old pictures of our classmates was one who was not with us. She had died of cancer more than a decade ago and I was moved to tears as the memories of our childhood flooded into my mind. But this moment, while moving, was the only one like that of the evening. Most of the night was filled with laughter and fond memories. The stuff of which pleasant dreams are made.