"One Writer's Beginnings," by Eudora Welty

A few days ago, I wrote about three recent books on reading and writing. Today I am writing about an older such book, a classic in the genre, a must-read: "One Writer's Beginnings," by Eudora Welty (Harcourt, 1983). The book is divided into three parts: Listening, Learning to See, and Finding a Voice. It is a mixture of memoir and thoughts on books and writing; it clearly and delightfully illustrates the influence of childhood on writers and readers. Welty remembers her parents' great love of books, their sacrificing to buy books for her, and their gentle encouragement of her fascination with books and writing. She provides much indirect advice for both writers and readers. The book also weaves in various strands related to growing up in the South, education, families, race, and much more. It is enhanced by several pages of family photographs.

There are so many passages I would like to quote, but I will confine myself to three excerpts:

"It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they came from, I cannot remember a time that I was not in love with them -- with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself" (pp. 5-6).

"I live in gratitude to my parents for initiating me -- and as early as I begged for it, without keeping me waiting -- into knowledge of the words, into reading and spelling...My love for the alphabet, which endures, grew out of reciting it, but, before that, out of seeing the letters on the page. In my own story books, before I could read them for myself, I fell in love with various winding, enchanted-looking initials...at the heads of fairy tales" (p. 9).

"Ever since I was first read to, and then started reading to myself, there has never been a line read that I didn't hear. As my eyes followed the sentence, a voice was saying it silently to me. It isn't my mother's voice, or the voice of any person I can identify, certainly not my own. It is human, but inward, and it is inwardly that I listen to it. It is to me the voice of the story or the poem itself. The cadence, whatever it is that asks you to believe, the feeling that resides in the printed word, reaches me through the reader-voice" (pp. 11-12).

As this book is an adapted version of a set of lectures that Welty gave at Harvard, and as these lectures are available on CD (Harvard University Press, 1984), we are fortunate to be able to hear that "reader-voice" quite literally. Hearing Welty's own voice is a wonderful pleasure that further deepens our appreciation of her work.

Welty (1909-2001) wrote five novels and several collections of short stories. I especially recommend two of her novels, "Delta Wedding" and "The Optimist's Daughter," as well as "The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty."

Finding Books Serendipitously

Sometimes we find intriguing books we weren't even looking for. I have stayed at borrowed or rented lakeside cottages, for example, perused the odd mishmash of books on the bookshelves there, and serendipitously found books that kept me reading late into the night. Once - going much further back in my history - for some reason I looked in a dark and little-used cupboard under the stairs in the lounge of the dormitory I lived in when in high school, and found a hidden stash of Agatha Christie mysteries. It was my first discovery of Christie, and soon I was devouring every one of the slightly battered paperbacks I had found, one right after the other. Somehow these books, bought and read by an unknown past resident of the cottage or dorm, and unexpectedly discovered by me, have a very particular appeal - even a sort of thrill - of their own. Here's to serendipity!

Irresistible Geographical Settings

I am drawn to certain novels because of their geographical settings. I especially cannot resist novels set in India, San Francisco, Manhattan, or England. In the cases of the first two, the reasons are obvious: I grew up in India, and that experience will always be an essential part of who I am, and I have lived in San Francisco most of my adult life. Manhattan settings are appealing for at least two reasons. First, New York is the center of American literature; it is the one place in the United States that almost all serious readers know and can picture. Second, it has a glamor and excitement that most of us are drawn to. I have never lived there, but have visited fairly often, and always feel it is a sort of magic, larger-than-life city. As for England: As I mentioned in an earlier post (on mysteries), I have always been an Anglophile (perhaps not surprising for a person born in Canada and raised in barely postcolonial India). So much of the literature and culture that means the most to me comes from England. Although I have only visited a few times, I feel I know London, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, Brighton, the English countryside, the English seaside, the English cliffs...I have read about them so very often in the novels I love. They are the settings portrayed so vividly by Austen, the Brontes, Eliot, Dickens, Hardy, Mitford, Pym, Thirkell, and so many more English authors. These places will always be part of my mental and emotional geography. These are the settings that draw me in; I am sure all readers have their own such lists...

Reading to Children

One of the great pleasures of parenthood (and for others with children in their lives) is reading to one's children. I remember when my daughter was small, I read to her for hours and hour...maybe hundreds or even thousands of hours over those first few years of her life. We started with the usual hard-paged books, and tactile books such as "Pat the Bunny." I loved reading her books that I myself had loved as a child, such as "Charlotte's Web" (which my mom would read to me, and I would cry, and then ask her to read it again...and again...and again...and cry each time! And I loved every minute of it!). My daughter and I enjoyed going to libraries and bookstores, especially for story hours, but also for browsing. I remember one children's bookstore that had replicated, full size, the scene of the book "Good Night, Moon" in a nook near the entry way -- furniture and all -- it was enchanting! Later we read the Ramona books, the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, the Anne of Green Gables books (all favorites of my own childhood as well), and many many more. Those hours reading together are some of my best memories of my daughter's childhood.

Please Patronize Independent Bookstores!

At the risk of "preaching to the converted," I urge readers to spend their money at independent bookstores rather than at the large chains or online vendors. Some of the many reasons to do so are as follows:
1. Local, independent bookstores are more individualized, often more specialized. They are attuned to their local customers and their locales. They do their own buying, rather than having a national office make decisions for the whole country.
2. Booksellers at independent bookstores are usually more knowledgeable about books.
3. Independent bookstores often have great readings and classes. It is true that some chains do as well, but the local bookstores can focus on local authors and cater to local interests.
4. Independent bookstores are more community-oriented. They often have programs that benefit local schools and other community institutions.
5. Statistics show that a much higher percentage of profits of independent bookstores goes back into the local community; profits don't go to the national corporate offices as they do with the chains.
6. Chains are often predatory, moving in very nearby to existing independent bookstores, undercutting the prices of those bookstores (because they have the corporate resources to do so), driving them out, and then sometimes raising prices again. (I have seen this happen in the area where I live; a few years back we lost the beloved A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books, here in Marin County, this way.)

Independent bookstores have been closing at a disturbingly high rate. If we lose these stores, we will have lost something essential and irreplaceable. Then all we will have left is the cookie cutter chain experience.

I would like to end by recognizing some of my favorite local, independent bookstores in the San Francisco Bay Area: Green Apple, on Clement Street in SF; Book Passage, in Corte Madera; and Books, Inc., on California Street in SF. I treasure these wonderful bookstores; long may they live!

What are your favorite independent bookstores?

Three Recent Books on Reading and Writing

Those of us who love reading and writing often like to read about reading and writing as well. Below are three recent books on the topic that I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend. All three authors - each in her own way - perfectly and evocatively capture connections among reading, writing, and life.

1. "Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books," by Maureen Corrigan (Random House,2005). -- Corrigan, who reviews books for NPR's "Fresh Air" (my favorite radio program, very literate in its own right), is a self-described "obsessive reader" who tells us that "from adolescence on, at least, I've read my life in terms of fiction."

2. "Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for those Who Want to Write Them," by Francine Prose (HarperCollins, 2006). -- Prose, a well-known novelist, writes about how essential careful reading is to good writing. This book is a blend of close reading and analysis of great books; Prose's own personal stories; advice for readers and for writers; and a list of recommended reading.

3. "Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home: Life on the Page," by Lynn Freed (Harcourt, 2005). -- This South African novelist and short story writer focuses on the ways in which a writer's experiences, particularly childhood experiences, influence her writing; she is generous in sharing her own experiences.

"Diary of a Provincial Lady"

I'd like to recommend a rather quirky, hilarious book, "Diary of a Provincial Lady," by E. M. Delafield (originally published in 1931, now available in a 1982 edition from Academy Chicago). The narrator, a middle-aged married English woman living in the countryside, writes in a low-key, faux-straightforward, but actually ironic, voice. She makes deadpan, ever-so-slightly-barbed comments about her husband, children, neighbors, and herself, and all the small events and concerns of the family and neighborhood. Just under the surface is a kind of anarchic quality, perhaps an almost feminist dismay at her circumstances, yet the narrator manages to do her duties, contain her feelings in front of others, and express them through gentle but deadly accurate observations written in her diary. Despite these veiled criticisms, the reader senses that the narrator is actually, mostly, quite happy with her family and her life. I found myself laughing out loud several times as I read. The humorous line drawings throughout the book add to the reader's enjoyment.

There is a sequel, in which the provincial lady goes to London; this volume is also enjoyable, but a bit of a letdown after the first book.