Reading Your Way Back
Another underlined passage from Diary of a Bookseller. On page 37, he explains how reading got him through a difficult experience:
The landscapes of Jonathan Meades, William Boyd, José Saramago, John Buchan, Alastair Reid, John Kennedy Toole and others protected me from my own thoughts, which were pushed into the background, where they could silently process without bothering me. I created a physical wall on my desk, made from the books, and as I read them the wall slowly came down until it was gone.
I can tell you what I read once the twins came how from the hospital. In those first few weeks, there was The Time Traveler’s Wife and Oryx and Crake. But those years when we were trying for the twins? It’s a black hole of reading.
I know there were books during that time. I mean, there are always books. But I don’t remember what I read. I can visually scan my bookshelves and note books I read before we started trying and books I read after I brought the twins home. But the years in between are a complete blank when it comes to the page.
I love that image of creating a wall of books between yourself and the world as you process an experience. And reading your way back toward interactions with other people. I wish I had kept a reading journal at that time, writing down the books I’ve read like I do now. But I just have to trust that there were stories that got me through it. I just don’t remember what they are.
What did you read/what are you reading as you process infertility or loss?
7 comments
I’ve read different types of books, none that have to do with infertility or loss though which I didn’t notice until now. This year my focus has been on reading books by Hispanic authors and it has been wonderful.
This is so interesting. A bunch of us on a private childless forum were observing that we hadn’t read much fiction since grief took over our lives. Once we started to emerge from that, the reading urge & the ability to enjoy and get absorbed in fiction returned. There’s probably a thesis in there somewhere…!
I think that was pretty true for me… I’ve only gotten back into reading fiction more in the past few years (& I’m having my best year ever for reading books overall since I started tracking). I wish I remember what I read, while I was going through infertility & loss too. The one book (fiction or non) I remember reading, post-loss, was “Bridget Jones’s Diary” — mainly because it was so funny, at a time when I thought I might never laugh again. Also, instead of flowers, my sister sent me a copy of the latest Amelia Peabody mystery by Elizabeth Peters (“The Ape That Guards the Balance”). I do know I devoured anything related to infertility or pregnancy loss — and because those were very hard to find in local bookstores, I wound up ordering a lot of stuff from Amazon, for the first time.
I don’t remember what I was reading during infertility and loss. But I do remember a friend loaning me two books when I was in hospital (a year apart, after each ectopic), when we had never before shared books (!). They both had miscarriages, or strong family themes (one started with the author waxing lyrical about how he had changed and how wonderful is life was when he had become a father) in them. Needless to say, I didn’t finish either of them! The timing was incredibly bad – but she just remembered she’d loved the books. Oh, to be as blissfully ignorant as my friend!
Is it strange that I have little recollection of reading any specific book(s) while we were going through infertility? I think I read Marley & Me during that era, and a couple of Jennifer Weiner books, but that’s about all I can recall.
I rarely read during my pregnancy because I was so sick and exhausted but resumed reading on my lunch hour at work as soon as I returned from maternity leave. I distinctly recall that the first books I read were the Hunger Games trilogy.
I remember reading a novel by Barbara Kingsolver — I think it was Animal Dreams. I remember sobbing.
I re-read it 15 years later and couldn’t find much emotion within me at all. There is such a dance between novel, reader, and timing.
I read a lot of twisty books, and a lot of books about sad situations that didn’t have anything to do with infertility (Wave, a memoir by a woman who lost her entire family in the Sumatran tsunami, was one of those). But, I was really irritated by my ability to find books with sneaky infertility subplots. I had a crazy talent for that. And one book that I read during that time that absolutely destroyed me emotionally was Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!. I love that book, butt I wonder if I’d have the same visceral reaction as I did when I read it right around my second loss. My Grandma kept a list of all the books she read, and it totally told a story about who she was at that time. I keep lists nude so I can go back and look at what I read, when. I might have to go read this Scottish bookseller book of yours!
There are a few books that stand out to me during the time of my infertility and my miscarriage struggles.
The first is Stranger by Megan Hart – the lead is a funeral director who pays for escort service because she’s seen too much death and doesn’t wish to get emotionally involved. She has a “pick up a stranger” fantasy and the escort service provides…except the stranger she ends up with isn’t the stranger sent by the agency. It addresses some fundamental questions about life and living and how your choose to spend your time on this earth. What do you lose by avoiding pain and when is loving someone who isn’t yourself worth the risk? After my second miscarriage, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to try again. How much pain and loss can a person endure? Would the potential benefits really outweigh the pain of the potential losses.
The other book is a fantasy novel by Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion. It’s harder to say why this was so helpful, but it gave me such hope for general daily living. It’s other worldly and has a pantheon of gods, but the interaction with that pantheon, gave me strength and courage in my own monotheistic faith. I often quote the book to myself even now to remind myself to be true to me, to use my strengths in the service of the world, my family, and my G-d. It’s a good book.