2 posts tagged “books”

Last October I went to Margaret's office for class advising. She had just been listening to Fresh Air and heard a review of Daniel Mendelsohn's The Lost. It sounded really great, so at some point in time I ordered myself a copy. I had to wait until winter semester ended to start reading it, and I just finished it on Sunday. I found it to be a tough read, but worth it. It is really amazing how much information Mendelsohn was able to obtain about these people who have not been seen or heard from since the early 1940s. The memoir is about the search, not just about the findings. There are many leads, a few dead ends, and lots of learning in the process. Mendelsohn learns not just about the six relatives for whom he is searching, but also about his own immediate family, and family members with whom he interacted over the course of his life. The similarities and differences among memories is central to this memoir. It is a tough read because Mendelsohn tends to write in circles (a trait he seems to have acquired from his grandfather). You have to be able to pay attention to everything that is going on.

I met up with a friend on Friday morning, and brought the book along with me. Whenever I meet up with her I am routinely 10-15 minutes early, and she is consistently 5-10 min. late. I've learned to bring entertainment. She saw I was carrying a book, and asked what I was reading. We email often, but had not discussed books in quite a while. Turns out she has also read The Lost. I had thought our tastes in literature were fairly different, so this was a pleasant surprise. It also parallels the surprises and coincidences in the book. We agreed that it was difficult to read, and it was this friend who pressed me to keep on going. I thought of her as I read: "this is why, years after I ceased to be her student, formally speaking, years after she had helped me through my thesis on Greek tragedy, I was still learning from her, still being pushed to see the problem as the solution" (p. 284). A thesis on Greek tragedy was not what this friend helped me through, but in more ways than one she is my Froma. I love her for it, and am so glad she continues to be part of my life and continues to inspire me to learn and grow.