Francisco’s Journal

I thought I would get philosophical (for a change!) and ask what it means to love a book. I often hear the phrase: “I liked it but I didn’t love it”, applied to a book. It surprises me to hear the word love so selectively applied to a book when it is so easily bandied about otherwise: “I love these potato chips.” It seems that we have more reverence for the word “love” when we refer to a book. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s just my own inner desire to save the preciousness of the word by using it only when I believe it to be true love. It seems to me that love for a book entails both the rapture of first love and the commitment of forever love. If that is the case, no wonder I find it hard to love just any book. By “rapture of first love” I mean that recognition of the book’s beauty, its goodness, its literary qualities all of which are experienced in a kind of rapture, a losing of myself in the world of the book. (Sounds very much like falling in love for a person, doesn’t it?). By “Commitment of forever love” I mean that I choose, that I select and prefer this book to the many other books I have read. It means that the book is now a part of me and I a part of it. It means that I don’t want to leave it, that even as I finish reading it, I already want to return it. It means that along with the passion of the initial rapture there is also a peace that is intuitively recognized as lasting. This is true love for me. I only want to add that true love is subjective. There are “classics” that I don’t love and there are what many would consider poorly written books that I love with all my heart. With these last kind there is a recognition of souls that takes places that pierces through the surface. May our hearts be always full of love.

Every summer when I walk into a book store, I see a table with all the books that teachers have assigned or recommended for their students. I spend a lot of time at this table even though most of the books that I see there are the same every summer. I don’t have to mention them, you know which I ones I mean. Every year a few new books make it to the table, but it is rare to see those books there the following year. I confess to you, that one of my greatest aspirations is to write a book that makes it to the table and stays there for a long, long time. Trust me, I’m familiar with impossible dreams, but I also know the energy and power that comes from them. I would like to think that when I sit down to write I am writing with all my strength, mind and heart, going so deep in search of beauty and truth because writing this way is the only way that my book will make it to the table. It is not that the books on that table have sold thousands of copies or won awards all though many have. It is what the books stand for that attracts me the most. Some of the books on the table are there because they provide valuable lessons and themes that teachers love to teach. But there are others, the ones I most admire. These books are the books that last because they offer nourishment and comfort to the human spirit. These are the books that challenge us to grow by the unanswered questions that they raise. They touch on the universal and they do it with beauty and grace. That is why I would like to see one of my books on the table.

John Updike, one of my favorite writers died last week. The New Yorker published this week (February 2, 2009) excerpts from John Updike’s writings. I am glad they were excerpts because I could hardly breathe as I read them. So much of John Updike’s writing takes my breath away every time I read it or re-read it. I’ll be reading one of his novels and then GASP all of the sudden there’s not enough air in the room or in the universe. Beauty does that. The beautiful has an affect on the body . . . like love. I write this because, while it is correct to say, as I did a few days ago on another journal entry, that the more truthful your writing, the more beautiful it is, still, I don’t want you to think that “truth” is all there is to good writing. There are writers (like John Updike) whose writings are both truthful AND take your breath away. In writers like Updike, the “How” and the “What” are especially connected if not united, so that, for example, his brilliant metaphors actually reveal a side of reality you had not seen or considered before. People like me need to forego any attempts to dazzle. “Stay on the safe side, and concentrate on truthful writing rather than on trying to take anyone’s breath away”, is what I tell myself. And if you are starting to write, I would strongly recommend you tell yourself something similar. However, sometimes there is no other way of saying it other than by saying it beautifully. If you find that there is ABSOLUTELY no other way of conveying the truth than by taking the reader’s breath away, well then, in that case, please proceed. With Caution.