Quote for the Day: July 25th, 2021

Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let’s not forget this.
Dave Eggers

One of my favorite things in the world is the feeling you get when you’re totally unguarded, immersed in a book, and you read a line or a passage that arrests you completely. In that moment, there are only two entities in the entire world: you and the author. Something clicks. It’s a spiritual connection made between two minds that validate each other through that silent acknowledgment, that yes, I feel that too.

In that moment, there are only two entities in the entire world: you and the author. Something clicks.

The last time that happened to me was while I was reading Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet. Those books destroyed me completely. Starting with My Brilliant Friend, Ferrante follows two women, Elena and Lila, living in an impoverished neighborhood in Naples, Italy. Their friendship is really the story at the heart of the novels, and Ferrante follows them from around the time they’re eight years old in primary school to the time they’re in their fifties. The transformation of their friendship mirrors the transformation of Naples and Italy itself, with all the concomitant volatility, upheaval, violence, grace, and love.

The transformation of their friendship mirrors the transformation of Naples and Italy itself, with all the concomitant volatility, upheaval, violence, grace, and love.

There were times when I was reading I would actually forget Elena and Lila were fictional characters, and I would cry, and I would tense up from the sheer electricity of Ferrante’s prose. Their sorrows were my sorrows, their pain my pain, their love my love. If all prose writers were like Elena Ferrante, I don’t think my heart could handle it. For me, that’s the purpose of literature—to both transcend your personal understanding of the world at the same time your own experience is validated.

For me, that’s the purpose of literature—to both transcend your personal understanding of the world at the same time your own experience is validated.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Book Review: Truth & Beauty: [A Friendship] by Ann Patchett (Audiobook)

Truth & Beauty is an exquisitely written and heartfelt evocation of a friendship. Reading it reminded me that most of the time we are incapable of saving anyone other than ourselves. We love, and that love may indeed be reciprocated, but we cannot pull someone back from the cliff of their own self-destruction by sheer force of will. Love is not a panacea. Losing someone we love is torture in its most essential form, distilled and pure. In the absence of someone we’ve loved more than our own lives, how do we reckon with what comes next in the aftermath? I don’t know that there’s an answer for this. Perhaps memory is the only thing that saves us. By committing to memory and the page everything that we hold dearest, we stave off our own oblivion, if only for the briefest of moments.

Perhaps memory is the only thing that saves us. By committing to memory and the page everything that we hold dearest, we stave off our own oblivion, if only for the briefest of moments.

I think that’s why Ann Patchett wrote Truth & Beauty. By writing about the love and friendship she shared with Lucy, everyone who reads it will know that there were once two friends named Ann and Lucy who loved each other with everything they had, and that death could not quell that love or erase its impact.

Favorite Quotes from the Book

We had invented time and could not kill it fast enough.

For the first time in my life I’ve found myself praying for actual things. Before I only prayed for stuff like wisdom and love and states of mind. These past few months, though, I’ve been much more materialistic. I want definite action on God’s part. Is this wrong? I worry that I’ll get punished somehow. I need to get out of this mess but I just don’t know how so I ask for his help.
From one of Lucy’s letters to Ann

She [Lucy] loved Christ for his suffering, for what they had in common. With all his strength, even Christ had asked if this burden could be lifted from him. The idea that pain was not a random thing, but a punishment of the evil upon the good, the powerful upon the weak, gave her something to rage against. After all, what is the point of being angry at nature when nature could care less? If you cried against barbarism, then at least you were standing up to a consciousness that could hypothetically be shaped. When Lucy believed that there were actually things in the world that were worse than what had happened to her, she could pull herself up on this knowledge like a rope. When she lost sight of it, she sank.

I used to think that once you really knew a thing, its truth would shine on forever. Now it’s pretty obvious to me that more often than not, the batteries fade, and sometimes what you knew even goes out with a bang when you try to call on it just like a light bulb cracking off when you throw the switch.
From one of Lucy’s letters to Ann

History is strangely incomprehensible when you’re standing in the middle of it.

I’m Just Not Feeling It

Do you ever have a day where you wake up and you know that you have a list of things that need to be accomplished, but you just can’t seem to care about anything?

That’s how I feel today. It is beautiful outside, the birds are chirping, and Julie Andrews is singing The Hills Are Alive while butterflies caress her with their wings. And I’m just so irritable I can’t stand myself, much less anyone else. As I’m looking at the clock, I have just barely over an hour to go before I have to start getting ready for work. Yes, I know I’m lucky to be employed. Yes, just the other day I made a post dedicated exclusively to talking about my hard-won promotion. On an intellectual level, I am grateful— but I’m so freaking tired.

It is beautiful outside, the birds are chirping, and Julie Andrews is singing The Hills Are Alive while butterflies caress her with their wings.

Days like this make me think of Shelley, which makes me smile. Shelley is an older Australian woman I used to work with at my store. She was contrarian, pugnacious, cynical, and sarcastic. She designated herself as our resident Mean Old Bitch and wore the title like a badge of honor. Sometimes I miss her so much that it makes my bones ache. We had a bond, we two. I love her and I know she loves me, and that’s for forever.

She designated herself as our resident Mean Old Bitch and wore the title like a badge of honor.

The rapport we quickly developed morphed into a beautiful friendship I’ll cherish as long as there’s breath in my body. One day when we were working together, she looked at me and out of nowhere exclaimed, “Shit, there’s got to be something fucking better than this.” A gentle warning for you: if the word “fuck” offends you even mildly, never work with an Australian émigré. I’m fairly certain Australian elementary school teachers end the school week by telling their pupils to “fuck off and have fun”.

One day when we were working together, she looked at me and out of nowhere, exclaimed, “Shit, there’s got to be something fucking better than this.”

I think about what she said that day a lot. She was right; there’s got to be something fucking better than this. I’m going to make it my life’s work to try to find it. For both of us. Bless her heart, the sour old bitch had to work retail right up until the pandemic forced her into an early retirement, followed by a move to Florida with her son. If you ever read this, Shelley, I love you. If we both end up in hell, please save me some space in your cabana.

If you ever read this, Shelley, I love you. If we both end up in hell, please save me some space in your cabana.

There’s not a tidy resolution for this post. I always get irritated when I’m reading something about someone having a bad day and they “somehow turned it around”. Nope. You can stop right there. A big part of self-care for me is just allowing myself to feel like shit when I feel like shit because it’s my brain’s way of telling me there’s something I need to process that I can’t happy-think my way out of.

A big part of self-care for me is just allowing myself to feel like shit when I feel like shit because it’s my brain’s way of telling me there’s something I need to process that I can’t happy-think my way out of.

I mean, let’s be real. I’m working a full-time, public-facing retail job in the middle of an ongoing global pandemic in a world that’s literally on fire from climate change and living with more mental health disorders than Meryl Streep has Oscar nominations. Ergo, I’m allowed to feel like shit. And so are you!

If you also feel bad today, know that I see you and I stand in solidarity with you, not to talk you out of your pain but to weather it with you until we all feel better. Much love.

This Just Speaks to Me: Dr. Maya Angelou in Conversation with Oprah Winfrey

We all need a little inspiration from time to time, and this is one conversation I return to whenever I need a spiritual tune-up. I hope it helps you as much as it’s helped me.