If there hadn’t been any books, or if I hadn’t read so many, I think my life would have been far drearier. For me, then, the act of reading was its own kind of essential school. A customized school built and run just for me, one in which I learned so many important lessons. A place where there were no tiresome rules or regulations, no numerical evaluations, no angling for the top spot. And, of course, no bullying. While I was part of a larger system, I was able to secure another, more personal system of my own. The mental image I have of a space of individual recovery is exactly like that.
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No wonder the “haven” in Kafka on the shore is a library.
