Books & more books Think of the dust mites!
Garvey, John
OF SEVERAL MINDS JOHN GARVEY BOOKS & MORE BOOKS Too much of a good thing Frank O'Malley was one of my teachers at Notre Dame, and he was a blessing, as anyone to whom he taught literature can...
...they're stacked in piles on the floor...
...Some people think this is a good thing, but I'm beginning to think of it as an addiction...
...I go back often to Raymond Chandler, Mark Twain, Sherwood Anderson, and W. H. Auden...
...Nothing would assuage the pain of her deprivation...
...I read a lot...
...he lived in an apartment in Lyons, a residence hall at the end of the campus...
...No one better conveys the joy of reading and language: "In my sensory education I include my physical awareness of the word...
...This sort of reading I can defend: the second reading of The Brothers Karama-zov is a richer experience than the first...
...There comes the moment, and I saw it then, when the moon goes from flat to round...
...It is probably better to read less, meditate more, and make sure that what you read is worth it...
...For the first time it met my eyes as a globe...
...It looks better than that and feels more like serious work or serious pleasure, but there is a problem buried there as well...
...O'Malley-a man who was terminally shy by nature- thought he should open his doors to them...
...I try giving them away, and more seem to wash in...
...There was no television set in our office, and this woman was hurting...
...Of a certain word, that is...
...But I spend far more time with the New York Times than I should...
...I recently read Eudora Welty's wonderful book One Writer's Beginnings...
...I remembered this recently, looking around my book-lined apartment...
...The word 'moon' came into my mouth as though fed to me out of a silver spoon...
...At around age six, perhaps, I was standing by myself in our front yard waiting for supper, just at that hour in a late summer day when the sun is already below the horizon and the risen full moon in the visible sky stops being chalky and begins to take on light...
...It comes close to being a sacrament...
...It's like the broomstick scene in the Sorcerer's Apprentice part of Fantasia...
...It had the roundness of a Concord grape Grandpa took off his vine and gave me to suck out of its skin and swallow whole, in Ohio...
...I know how she felt...
...She had to pace, or put her head down on her desk while she waited for release...
...I once knew a woman who was truly addicted to television...
...the connection it has with what it stands for...
...We worked for a state legislature, and the staff was not allowed to leave as long as the house was in session, which was often quite late...
...I never go anywhere without something to read...
...Man,' he said, 'you must be sick.' I thought a little and realized he was right...
...I said they were...
...I am sick...
...Held in my mouth the moon became a word...
...Once he told us of a time when the hall was opened to a group of inner-city kids for a summer program...
...It's included in the Library of America selection of her work...
...Books overflow the shelves...
...One little boy," he mumbled (he mumbled all the time), "came into my room and looked at all the books...
...I usually have two or three going at once), I get antsy...
...When I'm between books (a rare and brief condition...
...Our grade school library was thin on science fiction, which I loved, so between fourth and eighth grade I read Robert Hein-lein's Red Planet thirteen times...
...O'Malley was the last of Notre Dame's "bachelor dons...
...Reading which refreshes this part of us is not simple distraction, as I am afraid too much of my reading is...
...Much reading is killing time, avoiding the silence, just like having TV on all the time...
...Are all these books yours?' he asked...
...When you are a writer and read as much as I do, writing comparatively much less, it's like inhaling most of the time, and seldom exhaling...
...OF SEVERAL MINDS JOHN GARVEY BOOKS & MORE BOOKS Too much of a good thing Frank O'Malley was one of my teachers at Notre Dame, and he was a blessing, as anyone to whom he taught literature can tell you...
...I'm not sure this can be defended...
...Have you read them all?' 'Yes,' I said, 'and I've read some of them more than once.' He shook his head...
...Like Frank O'Malley, I read some books more than once...
...I think they mate and give birth while I'm out...
Vol. 129 • November 2002 • No. 20
