Fictional Simplicity

I would love to conduct a scientific experiment in which one version of my brain read contemporary fiction while another read an old classic, a Jane Austen novel for example, and I could sit back and compare their experiences.

I’m about halfway through Gary Shteyngart’s fantastically funny beautifully written new novel, Our Country Friends. It is entertaining and theoretically immersive and yet I can’t seem to read more than a chapter or two without drifting…(did I pay my credit card bill? I forgot to sign my kid’s sports consent form! Is it cold in here?). Not that this isn’t a fairly common experience in my life, but here’s the strange thing: Last month I re-read Mansfield Park and I sunk into it like a warm bath and came out only when I was relaxed and slightly shriveled.

So I’m wondering if there is a connection. Not in the prose so much as the world it portrays. Shteyngart’s novel is literally of the moment, full of phones, Covid, helicopter parenting and ambitious neurotic people. In Austen, a long walk could be the highlight of the day. News arrives so sporadically that each new snippet can be chewed over for days before the next one arrives.

Think of all the things we need to remember today: Passwords, who to call when the heat doesn’t work. Is it oil? Propane? How to unclog a drain, pay bills, pay taxes. Directions to the dentist, all the various doctor appointments and what your health care plan will cover. Which former republic is Russia planning to invade? What horrible things are the Chinese government doing now, without repercussions? That’s without touching on the latest music, movies, tv shows and whether or not I even subscribe to the service which will allow me to watch them.

Maybe it’s age catching up with me, this desire to downscale the input. My brain is fed up and its way of telling me is to cut me off after a chapter of the latest fiction. It’s telling me that I really should be living in a time when I could spend an entire morning hand-washing the underwear I’ve probably been wearing for days at a time. Gross? Yes. But so much less stressful!

The Jeans Gene

One of the many traits that drifted down from my mom and attached itself to me, barnacle-like, was an interest in fashion. I was not/am not/will almost surely never be fashionable. But that interest is in me, defying my inner eye-rolls and deep attraction to jeans and sweatshirts (a woman I worked with once described my “style” as slobby chic).

My mom’s (enormous) closet was filled with designer suits for day and Pucci dresses for evenings out. She had boxes and trays of accessories specifically purchased to match an outfit. She loved to shop and some of our best bonding happened at Daytons Department Store in Minneapolis, where she tried to convince me to be someone other than me.

I had none of her flair and my interest was once-removed, but that did not stop me from taking a job at Vogue Magazine straight out of college. It was a crappy job and I was a fish laughingly far out of water, but it led to other, slightly less crappy jobs and, finally, to W Magazine and Women’s Wear Daily, where I was finally able to do what I really wanted, which was write (even if most of the writing was about fashion).

When this book, Women in Clothes, came out a few years ago, I was skeptical. I had recently gone freelance and brushed all (most) remnants of the fashion world from the seat of my yoga pants, but the authors (Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton) were interesting writers and thinkers so the book couldn’t be a deep dive into narcissism.

Well a little bit is, but most of the book is comprised of great stories of women with stories like mine — women who have complicated feelings about clothes. Some see their choices as an extension of their personality, others find solace in specific pieces. Some are vaguely hostile towards the idea of it.

The book itself gave me solace. I thought I was supposed to feel certain things about clothes. It helped me realize how fashion is so often entwined with psychology and how that is not a bad thing; it’s just a thing.

My Life in Poetry

Lately, in an effort to not think about politics and the state of things, at least in the morning, I’ve taken to listening to the poetry podcast, The Slowdown, hosted by Ada Limon. It’s not a new show — for awhile it was hosted by Tracy K. Smith — but for whatever reason it has recently pulled me in to the point where it is nearly as essential as coffee.

The format is simple: Ada Limon picks a poem and introduces it with a short essay. The poems are invariably great, but it is the essays that pull me in and I am always a little (embarrassingly) disappointed when she shifts from talking to reciting. It got me thinking about poetry in my life. I want to love it much more than I actually do. I have shelves of books from Wordsworth to Rilke to Adrienne Rich to Billy Collins to Ada Limon and Tracy K. Smith. I read it often, but it does not seep into my bones the way I want it to. My mind wanders. Maybe I’m just too impatient, always looking for plot. I assumed I was always that way.

Recently though, I found a box of books from my childhood home. There was some James Michener, some Vonnegut, a stack of books from my high school class on dystopian literature which now seems quite relevant. There was also a lot of poetry. And here’s the thing: the books were dog-eared, underlined; there were notes in the margins and stars next to the titles I loved best. I had circled words I loved.

What happened? It is as if poetry was a youthful dalliance and now we broke up, or at least settled into a more cordial relationship. I’ve grown out of a lot of bad habits — thumb-sucking, using pretentious words in an effort to impress people, collecting baseball hats. Did I grow out of poetry?

I can only hope that I somehow cycle back to it. That someday soon I crave it again, a craving more along the lines of sweets than the vegetables my body knows are good for it.

Old Book, New Book

I have not always been such a great reader. For most of my adolescence and (embarrassingly), well into my twenties, I read…non-challenging books. I remember showing one old boyfriend, a real reader, the book I had just bought. His eyes popped at the bright pink cover. “Sweetie Baby Cookie Honey?” he read. I could see him re-evaluating our entire relationship (and in retrospect he should have!)

A few years later, I bought my first hardcover (Spartina, by John Casey, for no reason I can remember now) and it sat in a prominent, GROWN UP, spot on my bookshelf. Then I got a job at Shakespeare & Company and set myself on a new trajectory, one of hoarding and obsession, one in which our house has bookshelves in nearly every room and before an upcoming renovation, I had to ward off a panic attack at the prospect of losing one of the larger shelves.

As my buying habits continue unabated, I have noticed a shift in how I shop. In the early days of the internet, I was getting constant deliveries (while continuing to patronize my local stores). Lately though, I don’t shop online. I window shop, but somehow the ability to buy anything I want whenever I wanted took the thrill out of it. It reminded me of when my brother used to collect coins and got a manic look in his eye when he stumbled across a new one.

We are lucky enough to have not one but three fantastic used bookstores within a forty-five minute drive of our house. This has always felt like a gluttony of riches, but then it only got better last weekend, when we discovered the seasonal barn next door to one of them.

Shaker Mill Books, West Stockbridge, Mass

Shaker Mill Books in West Stockbridge is, in all seasons, a really good store with a great selection of used books and some new. The owner, Eric Wilska, is clearly an obsessive in the best sense of the word. In the winter, the enormous barn next door to the shop is a place to store inventory, but in the summer he opens it up to the public. It’s like nothing else. It’s full of book art (shelves and pillars and furniture constructed entirely from books, a dress made of pages of an encyclopedia) and incredible books you never knew existed (or imagined could exist): magnum size limited edition books which accompanied exhibits, including a David Hockney (signed by Hockney) and a Rolling Stones book full of candid pictures and signed by every member of the band. Wilska himself is extremely friendly and happy to offer background on some of the more surprising features of the store.

I’ve been thinking about why I’m gravitating to used bookstores, and will write about it later. But first I have to do some more research.