Illusion Sleeves

I am very much enjoying my slow reading of Kate Briggs’s This Little Art, organized by Kim and Rebecca. At the reflective pace of three or four pages a day, I pay attention to different things.

On the very first page, my attention snagged on a pair of delicate, gauzy sleeves–so easy to catch things on. These sleeves, and the arms they both reveal and conceal, come from Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain. Or from Helen Lowe-Porter’s translation of the novel. Or perhaps from Briggs’s paraphrase of that translation. It’s hard to tell exactly whose words these are.

The sleeves appear only indirectly, in the memory of Hans Castorp, who is comparing their effect on him to that of Frau Chauchat’s bare arms, which he’s observing in the novel’s present:

He had thought, on making their acquaintance for the first time — veiled, as they had been then, in diaphanous gauze — that their indescribable, unreasonable seductiveness was down to the gauze itself. To the ‘illusion,’ as he had called it. Folly! The utter, accentuated, blinding nudity of those arms was an experience now so intoxicating, compared with that earlier one, as to leave our man with no other recourse than, once again, with drooping head, to whisper, soundlessly: ‘O my God!’ (11)

What, I wondered, were these sleeves doing in Briggs’s book, an extended essay on literary translation. I understand the relevance of a later part of the scene, where Hans flirts with Frau Chauchat in his tentative French and she asks him, in the same language, to speak German. This negotiation among languages clearly raises questions of translation–and as Briggs goes on to explain, she is reading it in Lowe-Porter’s translation, which renders the German, but not the French, into English for her. So why not start there? Why a page about sleeves and arms before we get to the heart of the matter?

My Year in Not Reading, 2023

Well of course I did read. “Reader” has been a big part of my identity since I was the kind of kid who read the back of the cereal box at breakfast if nothing better offered. But when I look back at 2023, what stands out in my reading memory is how many books I started but didn’t finish, or returned to the library unopened. Or that I mislaid my reading notebook for a couple of months and hardly missed it because I read so few books in that time.

A big part of my erratic and distracted reading was my big/small move: I only went a few blocks, but I downsized from the family home of 20-some years to a townhouse, which was a huge amount of work and chaos. This year felt like at least two–so much so that I discovered, talking to my mom and sister on my recent birthday, that I had convinced myself I was a year older than I actually am. However, I notice that last year’s post had a very similar title. These ongoing struggles to live out my vocation as a reader are one reason I chose “attention” as my word for 2024 (yes, somehow I have become the kind of person who chooses a word of the year).

Here are some highlights from 2023 and plans for a more attentive 2024:

My Year in (Not?) Reading, 2022

It was not the best. I did read some good books, but I think I returned as many to the library unread. I don’t really remember a lot of what I read. I listened to many mystery audiobooks that went in one ear and out the other. Pandemic burnout, maybe. Let’s hope next year is better!

Here are some themes of my reading year, and books that managed to linger in my memory:

I’ve been drawn to memoirs in the last few years because the upending of my own life has made me interested in how others make sense of theirs.

Lea Ypi’s Free recounts hcr childhood in Communist Albania, and how, after the fall of Enver Hoxha, she found she had been living a lie that none of the adults around her believed. The astonishing evocation of life in a totalitarian society gripped me most. It might appeal to lovers of Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son.

Recent Reading (and Not-Reading)

I read some things, and DNF’d some others, that I feel like writing about! Let’s get to it.

Self-Helpy DNFs

Anhedonia was a major symptom of my depression, and I am still working on enjoying the things I used to (yes, that does sound like a contradiction in terms, and no, the pandemic doesn’t make it easier). And now, unmarried, children grown if not flown, and sadly newly dogless, I have so much more space in my life to do what I enjoy, to explore new things to enjoy. It’s surprisingly hard to figure out what I want to do and try–it’s been so long since I asked myself what I like.

Recently, I came across this podcast conversation between Arthur C. Brooks and Lori Gottlieb (whose book on therapy I enjoyed) on how to figure out what you enjoy, and found it helpful. Looking for more along those lines, I spotted Catherine Price’s The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again at my library. Sadly, this was a DNF. There’s nothing wrong with it, really, but I can’t stand the kind of self-help where the author feels the need to create special terms that sound like they should have a trademark symbol when normal words and dictionary definitions would do. And this is that kind of book. Going through an elaborate process of journaling about True Fun^TM (yes, she does use that, capitalized, though I added the ^TM) did not sound, well, fun. I did get some good ideas about what kinds of experiences to look for, though.

Price’s previous book was on breaking up with your phone, and that carried over into this one, as she feels the fake fun we have on our distracting devices gets in the way of having real fun, which typically involves being present with others. That resonated with me, so next I turned to Johann Hari’s new book, Stolen Focus. I started the audiobook, and it wasn’t terrible or anything, but it was taking so long to get to the actual information, and then I saw Hari did an episode of Ezra Klein’s podcast and figured that was as much as I wanted to know about the book’s ideas. (No doubt it’s some kind of deadly English teacher sin to listen to the podcast instead of reading the book).

Even though I didn’t read these books, the fact that I was drawn to them showed me where I want to go next in my healing. I’d just rather get on with focusing and finding fun than read the books–which in itself suggests I’ve made some progress in healing.

My Year in Reading, 2021 edition

Hey, it’s me! What happened to that person who seemed to have so much energy for blogging at the start of the year? Well, that energy went into self-reflection and journal-writing instead. Climbing out of depression and grief is hard work, but I’m doing it, slowly.

This fall I went up to full time at work and taught first-year literature classes for the first time in ages, so a lot of my reading energy was spent on books for class and student work.

My reading this year, then, continued to be affected by the upheaval in my personal life, and as a result it wasn’t the most interesting reading year I’ve ever had. Some of my reading experiences with my students were great! I’m going to write something about that for Dorian, and I’ll let you know when it’s posted. Here are some highlights from the rest: