I am slogging through one book and hop, hop, hopping along through another. A quotation from the latter:
The most useful thing I brought out of my childhood was confidence in reading. Not long ago, I went on a weekend self-exploratory workshop, in the hope of getting a clue about how to live. One of the exercises we were given was to make a list of the ten most important events of our lives–the key moments that brought us from birth to wherever we are now. Number one was: “I was born,” and you could put whatever you liked after that. Without even thinking about it my hand wrote, at number two: “I learnt to read.” “I was born and I learnt to read” wouldn’t be a sequence that occurs to many people, I imagine. But I knew what I meant to say. Being born was something done to me, but my own life began–I began for myself–when I first made out the meaning of a sentence.
from Are You Somebody? by Nuala O’Faolain
Thanks to Mark Sampson at Free Range Reading for linking to the interview with Eleanor Wachtel that led me to buy the book and fall headlong into this woman’s life.
(Links to come later. Something’s wonky over here, and it’s not just my brain.)
Hey Nathalie,
You’re very welcome. I haven’t actually read any of O’Faolain’s books (yet) but I am absolutely in love with that interview. It’s the equivalent of comfort food for my ears.
Cheers,
M.