CarrollBlog 3.25

I don't know about you, but when I think back on certain books I've read, I often remember the circumstances or the places I read it more than the book itself. In some cases I can't even remember the plot beyond certain basics, but can clearly see where I was and how I felt when reading it: that horrible hot airport where the flight kept getting delayed and the only thing to do was read this stupid thriller. Or the perfect table outside at a small cafe in the middle of Switzerland one summer where all I did was drink coffee, read Salter's "Light Years," and now and then look up to watch the yellow chestnut trees rustle in the breeze. The enormous blue Mark Helprin novel in a dumpy but wonderful rooming house in Greece. Reading Edward Gorey's "The Unstrung Harp" for the first time on a very rainy November day, so caught up in what I was reading and seeing that the 2nd Coming could have happened around me but I wouldn't have noticed. Proust had his matelot to remind him of his childhood. Books do the same thing for me.