5/15/2023 0 Comments Sea of solitude memesI can see historians in the distant future salivating over these chronicles, constructing a grand thesis of this year out of sea shanties, selfishness, side parts, and sourdough. It took nearly the entire pandemic, but I found one perfect pairing on this subject, which I recommend as an omnibus to anyone looking to read a goodbye to the past twenty-four months: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, published in 2020, and Bear by Marian Engel, published in 1976, but available in a new edition from Daunt Books. What I wanted was to read about solitudes vastly weirder than my own. I was tired of my own life but too covetous to vicariously experience anything too different. I envied anyone who had the luxury of meeting a new person and disliking them immediately. I was also jealous of any books in which too many people congregated, in which women hugged their parents or grew exasperated with them. Posterity can have them I didn’t want to read anything explaining one’s corner of the pandemic. I can see historians in the distant future salivating over these chronicles, constructing a grand thesis of this year out of sea shanties, selfishness, side parts, and sourdough that manages to miss the point but still become a best seller because of a portentous title and glaring red cover. As Roger Ebert wrote in his film reviews of The Scarlet Letter and Sherlock Holmes: “This will not do.”Īn endless number of pieces devoted to literature that might prove relatable have been published in the past year. I couldn’t say that I was comfortable then, and sitting here on my bed a year later, I have run out of new places to sit. There was a depressing smell of lavender hand sanitizer, and the only light came from my laptop screen. I was sitting on my bed as I read this, my back against the wall and my feet sticking out over the edge. Smith’s scene was all too familiar, even only two weeks into New York City’s stay-at-home order. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring. I can’t say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. That is, my feet are in it the rest of me is on the draining board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea cozy. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. I scanned the first paragraph and set the book back down, realizing that the most charming children’s book might read as horror (at least, if consumed in the wrong circumstances).ĭodie Smith’s book begins by intruding upon the works of the very British teenage protagonist, Cassandra Mortmain: I started reading I Capture the Castle on the evening of March 27, 2020, looking for some comfort.
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