Next week I appear at my first book club meeting and it seems to me especially fitting that the club is mostly comprised of teachers. The fall always brings back memories of school, and one English teacher in particular. Frankly, she looked Elizabethan. Rail thin, inevitably wearing a high collared dress, the papery skin on her face always covered with the palest foundation makeup, lips carmined, hair a bright unnatural red worn in tight curls like a cap on her head. Her gaze was direct and questioning, she moved her hands sparingly, elegantly, and pointedly. She’d turn her attention toward you and ask, hands palm to palm, head cocked forward, “And what are you reading?” As if the answer were vital. I loved her for it.
I’ve just finished reading, All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, Leave it to Psmith, by P.G. Wodehouse, and I Look Divine by Christopher Coe, with an introduction by David Leavitt.
All the Light takes place in WWII, the world is broken; but the lives of two children—one blind and seeking, one gifted but schooled by monsters—merge with startling beauty.
Leave it to Psmith is pure Wodehouse fun, a comedy of manners set in Blandings Castle, where jewels go missing, and mates are found.
I Look Divine is a portrait drawn with a diamond edge by an author who died of AIDS in 1994. The high life of two brothers is recounted by the elder, who lives to see the younger feed on the desire of other men, and self-destruct at the first hint of age.
Okay. Really different stories, but what these books have in common is the divine clarity of the author’s prose. Beautifully, beautifully, written books.
What are you reading?