Disappearing acts

I went to Tobias Wolff’s reading at Bryn Mawr College earlier this week.  I have a huge crush on Toby (he may not know we’re at such a personal level, but we are) because of a short story of his called “Bullet in the Brain.”  It is a beautiful, very short story about a man’s love of language.  It is about loss and regret and has a sharp sense of humor to boot.  I find this story to be the epitome of craft; it is amazing what he can do in about six pages.

I’ll stop the love fest there.  What I really wanted to write about was something Toby said during the Q&A portion of the event.  To paraphrase it crudely, he said that even when we’re alone, we’re not alone when we’re with a book.  He talked about his memoir This Boy’s Life and how he wished he had read a book when he was a teenager that made him feel like someone understood him.

Some of the best books I’ve read made me feel understood.  They might not have been the best written books but just about anything can be forgiven if a character feels your pain, can name it, describe it and eventually live through it.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle was one such book for me.  (And it’s well-written, so doesn’t need to be forgiven anything.)  I read it in third grade, a little younger than the YA label advised but what are you going to do?  The protagonist Meg is brilliant and misunderstood and trying desperately to find a place in the world.  Obviously, this was my plight as well, even at eight.

Meg’s world was not my own.  I didn’t have a scientist mother who cooked on the Bunsen burner or a younger brother who wouldn’t speak.  I did have a missing father, in a sense, and Meg’s mission to find him - using tesseracts to move through time and space, no less! – made me feel that anything was possible.  Her world was preferable to mine most days.  (Also, I didn’t have a popular boyfriend to tag along and help.)

I disappeared into books during my childhood when I needed to hide from the world around me.  I was notorious for not hearing someone shout my name while I read on the couch, even when they stood just behind me.  I still do that sometimes.  When I need a break from everything and I have some time to disappear, I’ll take to my bed with a book and ignore the world.  And I am alone and not alone.

And again, the book doesn’t need to be a Pulitzer.  In fact, sometimes an easy read, a completely plot-driven book will suffice because no one wants to think when your head already hurts. 

(I will admit the silly Twilight series got me through one particularly bad weekend.  And one weekend is all it took for those four books.  They dissolve on your lap they’re so easy to flip through.  And that’s not necessarily a compliment.  It’s just a fact.)

When I was reading Lauren Groff’s The Monsters of Templeton - and no, I hadn't taken to my bed again; it was on the commuter train - I was reminded of this disappearing act I pull.  She writes:

“When I was small and easily wounded, books were my carapace.  If I were recalled to my hurts in the middle of a book, they somehow mattered less.  My corporeal life was slight; the dazzling one in my head was what really mattered.  Returning to books was coming home.”

Not every book will change the world or even the thoughts of one person.  Some just tell a really good story that people want to read and maybe will distract them from their own pain and fears.  I only hope than anything I write can someday be a prop in someone else’s disappearing act.