That little bit of business out of the way, it hit me this evening as I came to the magnificent end of Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi, that reading was indeed a lonely business. Books like this beg to be discussed, to be gushed over...and in the moment, not at a book club a week down the road or in a class, but immediately after you read the final account of Katsimbalis crowing into the Athenian darkness and being answered by invisible roosters (incredible!).
Anyway, lacking that simpatico individual who is not only reading the books I am reading, but reading them at the same pace, I turn to this blog. I'll attempt to say intelligent things about the books I'm reading when I can, but more than that I will just try to say something about them. During the school year, I'll probably focus on young adult novels because I work in a junior high library and I always feel like a fraud recommending books I don't really know anything about (also, YA books are pretty amazing). This summer, I'll be sticking to the grown-up books, probably going back and forth between fiction and non-fiction.
To get off to a rather pathetic start, let me just sing the vague but full-throated praises of The Colossus of Maroussi. It was recommended to me by one of the professors I toured Greece and Crete with, a fellow philhellene, and it pulled me back there forcefully. Of course, Miller visited about 65 years before I did, but there is something eternal about the way he captures those places (he would say, and I'd probably agree, that it is the places themselves that are eternal). If you've had the good fortune to spend some time wandering the streets of Athens or exploring the ruins of Knossos, you should read this book. If you haven't, you should still read it. He captures the joy of finding kindred spirits in foreign places, of finding yourself surprised by your travels, and maybe most significantly, of hearing a well-told story.
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