Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight
Not only is he reading it, but enjoying it immensely.
Which just goes to show you that it's a very special book indeed.
The cover caught my eye at Borders--several years ago, actually. Every time I walked through Borders thereafter, I would flip through it, and be sorely tempted. It just looked so much like my kind of book.
A few weeks ago, Andy and I spent our date night at Borders--just for coffee and browsing, you know!--and I finally gave in and bought the book. Andy couldn't really object, because of that Greek book that he wasn't going to buy... just browse a bit... well...... and there it sits on our shelf. So while Andy couldn't object, and while his conscience forced him to actually encourage me to buy it, he most certainly could sneer. With all the great books there are to be read, why would you waste your precious time on one that is less than ten years old? He prefers to wait for the fltering effect of time. Our conversations thereafter were laced with subtle condescending references to "my sort of book."
It most definitely is my sort of book. I was initially attracted to it because the vague black and white photo on the cover seemed to suggest something akin to the sheer rock walls and tallis slopes that formed the backdrop to my own childhood. It's not. Look closely and you'll see that it's actually a house and a lawn... a very different sort of landscape, as far as all particulars are concerned. But still something of the spirit is the same there.
And that is the way of our respective stories. Diametrically opposed in all particulars, but astonishinly similar in flavor. Her African childhood and my canyon childhood were filled with the same themes and incongruities, and though we experienced them from entirely different perspectives, we experienced them in precisely the same way.
And thus it was that my astonishment at finding Andy reading my book was rather surpassed by my relief at hearing him pronounce it to be really remarkable.
I think maybe I'll try to get through a few pages of his book this afternoon. Even if it is all Greek to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment