Navigating? Get Lost!

Hendrick Ibsen and Tana French make wonderful companions but lousy co-pilots. Lost in their stories, I miss my train stop.

And yet…

Two tales spring to mind. I was ten, sitting in Mrs. Franklin’s stuffy classroom, predisposed to loathe Jack London’s To Build a Fire. I loved reading, but hated anything that was assigned, that pretended to be a story but was really a boring prelude to … there’s no polite term for it … a spelling test. But I couldn’t escape, so I bit down hard and read.

He marvels at how his fingers work, reflexively backing off a hot match. What it’s like to fumble. How cold he is. We’re on a mountain (not in a cinderblock room) and for the first time I forgot about liking the character, or wanting to live the story, and thought, “Wow! This is good!” Granted, not astounding literary criticism, but London’s observations sped through my veins. I wanted more. When that dog trotted off with no moralizing on London’s part, I felt like I was in the presence of Truth.

Was I?

In Biblo Veritas?

Maybe. Sometimes literature is communion, sometimes it’s just a fantastic drunken yarn. Either way, decades later I walk my dog and recall To Build a Fire.

That same year, my friend Susan told me about George Orwell’s Animal Farm. (I realize now I should thank her; I’ll send her this.) The death of Little Women’s sapless Beth March bored me, but the not-quite-loud-enough clatter of Boxer’s hooves pounding inside the glue truck makes my heart seize. Remembering the stolen puppies who return as attack dogs, I worry about the kids caged at our border. Are they being siphoned off for a children’s army? If only that was preposterous, but in light of everything Orwell has gotten right … and those crazy militias… and so-called Christians…and … What could be more terrifying? Meanwhile, Squealer skips as he manipulates because, you know what? Lying is fun! Ill-gotten gains are attractive! Orwell never flinches and I can’t take my eyes off his page.

So, I miss my stop. And maybe I learn something. And if I don’t? The best dancers I know are in excellent shape, but that’s not their motivation. They dance because they love it. If books improve my mind, I’m grateful, but I’m fine if that’s a delusion. It’s more than enough to be Ibsen’s lover, London’s junkie, Orwell’s disciple, while wandering lost with French— just let me read.