I’m considering adding books in Spanish (and maybe even French) to my lists. It’s not so much that I’m reading a lot more Spanish fiction but rather that my slow, fumbling march through fiction in a language other than English is absorbing more and more of my time. If it takes me ten times as long to read Bolaño or Cervantes might suggest that I will be reading far fewer books each month. Then again, is that a problem?
Way way back in the past history of this world (often referred to as The Sixties) I read Tarzan en la Selva. As a Senior in High School my family hosted a student from Peru and I spent much of the day immersed in Spanish. But when I matriculated on to the university I was coerced into thinking that a knowledge of Spanish was insufficient for advanced study in literature so I switched to French. This had three results: first, I learned enough French to pass my language exams for graduate school; second, my mind replaced engrammatic knowledge of Spanish words and phrases with the French equivalents, and finally, I twisted my little gray cells around the two languages such that I was never confident speaking either.
Well, maybe it’s not that important to remember but each day I publish a new title that catches my interest and, despite the odds against it, I just might read one of these days. Actually, I probably read two or three of these books eventually and if you read two or three of these books and if … well, chances are someone, somewhere will contemplate reading one or more of these books so the suggestions will not be in vain.
Sitting here reading in the sun while a dangerous hurricane is slowly moving toward Florida and the Southeastern coast. Back where I lived until three years ago, they’re either sitting in traffic, a hot car running low on gas, or closed up inside the darkness caused by storm shutters.
You hear it all the time: some people even consider not-reading to be a positive characteristic. Of course there are levels and varieties of not-reading: some business types would not be caught reading fiction (although I knew a powerful corporate officer that rejected all fiction … except the romantic bodice rippers he read secretly at night in bed; some social climbers only read (or professed to having read) the most mainstream best-sellers; some readers are overly restrictive, concentrating on a specific genre such as fantasy or science fiction; and there are those who refuse to read anything older than ten years.