My Reading Life

Well no, not mine exactly. But it should be, it could be, it may be someday. Instead, it's Pat Conroy's reading life that we're talking about today. I love this exquisite little book, more even than his novels, some of which I've relished and others, not so much. But My Reading Life is more personal, giving the reader a look inside the mind of a writer and of a man who appreciates every single day that he's been given, a man so overflowing with love for family, friends, teachers, mentors, even cities, that the words sing on the page.

Oh, to be able to express oneself this way! Those of you familiar with Mr. Conroy's work are likely to also be familiar with his life. It's an open book. The Water is Wide, which recounts Conroy's year teaching the beautiful children of Daufuskie Island, The Great Santini, a fictional look at Pat Conroy's childhood under the demanding Marine Corps pilot who damaged his wife and children in ways they may still not fully understand, or The Lords of Discipline, a book about the life of a plebe at The Citadel. You know who that was.

In My Reading Life, we are treated to the back story, and what a story it is. I admit that I had to work through my discomfort at the homage Conroy pays to his mother. Often, in death, I've found that very average, perfectly fine people tend to be lifted up on pedestals that they may not truly be worthy of, and I've wondered if Conroy's obsession with his mother might be a case in point. Still, I loved the picture of her studying along side her son, doing the work of each of his college classes, as if she were the student. She was driven to educate herself and make up for what she missed by marrying the Marine at too young an age.

Each chapter is a paean to a person or place in Pat Conroy's past that he remembers and relishes as if it were yesterday. The Old New York Book Shop and its owner Cliff Graubart star in one such chapter. When Conroy describes entering this bookstore for the first time, I could actually smell the dust of years, see the creaking old wood floors and the topsy-tervy shelves of treasures. He echoed my sentiments this way; "Books are living things and their task lies in their vows of silence. You touch them as they quiver with a divine pleasure...."

And then there's Gene Norris, the English teacher who was everything that Pat Conroy needed in a man and didn't see at home. I would venture that Mr. Norris saved Pat Conroy's life and the tribute he gives to this formidable educator is beautiful and tender. This was a man who stood up to the school board of Beaufort High School circa 1961 to fight for the teaching of The Catcher in the Rye.

 In a still segregated South Carolina, Gene Norris purchased monthly subscriptions to Harper's, The Atlantic and The New York Times for his students so that they could learn about the world outside their circumscribed existence.
And Gene Norris took the young Pat Conroy to his first fancy restaurant where he ate Dover Sole on china plates, learning which utensil came when and how to properly unfold a napkin. Forty years later Pat Conroy was at Gene Norris's death bed, the culmination of a relationship like many of Conroy's that truly seemed to stand the test of time.

I'm sorry, I'm going on and on but I just can't say enough about this book. It touches a reader's soul. The chapter about his time in Paris writing The Lords of Discipline, and the French teacher who predicted that he would glorify the English language - he was terrible en Francais - writing in a garret room overlooking the Seine, makes me pea-green with envy (to quote his mother's alter-ego Scarlet O'Hara.) The disciplined days of writing, followed by the long, aimless walks, learning the city of lights by night, sound glorious in their simplicity.

And then there's Thomas Wolfe - and why, or why, haven't I read Look Homeward Angel yet? And what about James Dickey, who actually kicked our Pat Conroy out of poetry writing class, doing us all a huge favor. Reading about all the great literary influences that Pat Conroy has enjoyed simply makes me want to run away to a place where the distractions of daily life recede into the background and I can just revel in the written word to my heart's content.
I've been this way since I was about twelve. Pretty sure I won't change now.