Ruined By Reading
Page 11
Reading gives a context for experience, a myriad of contexts. Not that we will know any better what to do when the time comes, but we will not be taken unawares or in a void. When we are old and have everything stripped away, and grasp the vanity of having had it and of grieving for its loss, yet remain bound in both vanity and grief, hugging the whole rotten package to our hearts in an antic, fierce embrace, we may think, King Lear: this has happened before, I am not in uncharted territory, now is my turn in the great procession.
So much of a child’s life is lived for others. We learn what they want us to learn, and show our learning for their gratification. All the reading I did as a child, behind closed doors, sitting on the bed while the darkness fell around me, was an act of reclamation. This and only this I did for myself. This was the way to make my life my own.
Beacon Press
25 Beacon Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2892
B E A C O N P R E S S B O O K S
are published under the auspices of
the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
© 1996 by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schwartz, Lynne Sharon.
Ruined by reading : a life in books /
Lynne Sharon Schwartz.
p. cm.
eISBN 978-0-8070-7100-7
ISBN 0-8070-7082-3 (cloth)
ISBN 0-8070-7083-1 (paper)
1. Schwartz, Lynne Sharon—Biography. I. Title.
PS3569.C567Z88 1996
813′.54—dc20
[B] 95-43482