Regression. Who me?
A few days ago I told my nineteen-year-old daughter that I was going with friends to see Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. There was a pause before Em said, “Isn’t that a little young for you?”
I thought it was kind of sweet she didn’t phrase it as: aren’t you old for that?
I recently heard Carol Christ, the president of Smith College, speak about fantasy in nineteenth century literature for children. She called Alice in Wonderland her favorite children’s book, in part because of the way it speaks to both adults and children. She mentioned the rabbit hole as perhaps symbolizing the regression of adults, going back into the womb. Hmm. I’m more apt to think about how we wind our ways around words or add layers as we read books we read as children and find more than we first did. It’s not about going back in search of lost boys or lost worlds, but maybe realizing those people and places have been with us all along.
Or something. Sorry. I just mean to say that regression isn’t a word I care to use, and that things are more complicated than moving back or moving forward, and that we may never completely peel away all the people we’ve ever been. It’s why fairy tales stick with us, and why we find more in them as years pass. We don’t have to move beyond, but just let things accrue. I told my students who are studying picture books about my just-hit-up-the-candy-store feeling, part guilt, more elation, the first time I checked out library books not intended for my child, but for me. Yes, you can find pretty or funny pictures even in the stacks of college libraries, which not only have a cataloguing system that’s more complicated than the Dewey Decimal most library-lovers grew up with, but have the jackets removed from books, almost as if to keep the stacks less colorful and shiny.
“There should therefore be a time in adult life devoted to revisiting the most important books of our youth. Even if the books have remained the same,… we have most certainly changed, and our encounter with them will be a new thing.” -- Italo Calvino, The Use of Literature
And C. S. Lewis, wrote, “When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly.” (“On Three Ways of Writing for Children)
The idea of growing up suggests a movement toward a better state. Yes, in some ways, but not entirely. It’s good to read books written for young people and good to hang out with them. I like walking with my contemporary, Mary, as we discuss political campaigns, cholesterol, and calcium, for instance, but yesterday I had fun walking with my thirteen-year-old neighbor, hearing her philosophy on squirrel chasing dogs - they can’t help it, it’s like a video game to them. And did I know anyone who might want some chickens she needs to get rid of? They’re past laying eggs but make nice easy pets, and she has 28, a lot to get in each night. When our dog leashes crossed, instead of passing over the leads as Mary and I do, G. leapt over them, without a break in the conversation.
I thought it was kind of sweet she didn’t phrase it as: aren’t you old for that?
I recently heard Carol Christ, the president of Smith College, speak about fantasy in nineteenth century literature for children. She called Alice in Wonderland her favorite children’s book, in part because of the way it speaks to both adults and children. She mentioned the rabbit hole as perhaps symbolizing the regression of adults, going back into the womb. Hmm. I’m more apt to think about how we wind our ways around words or add layers as we read books we read as children and find more than we first did. It’s not about going back in search of lost boys or lost worlds, but maybe realizing those people and places have been with us all along.
Or something. Sorry. I just mean to say that regression isn’t a word I care to use, and that things are more complicated than moving back or moving forward, and that we may never completely peel away all the people we’ve ever been. It’s why fairy tales stick with us, and why we find more in them as years pass. We don’t have to move beyond, but just let things accrue. I told my students who are studying picture books about my just-hit-up-the-candy-store feeling, part guilt, more elation, the first time I checked out library books not intended for my child, but for me. Yes, you can find pretty or funny pictures even in the stacks of college libraries, which not only have a cataloguing system that’s more complicated than the Dewey Decimal most library-lovers grew up with, but have the jackets removed from books, almost as if to keep the stacks less colorful and shiny.
“There should therefore be a time in adult life devoted to revisiting the most important books of our youth. Even if the books have remained the same,… we have most certainly changed, and our encounter with them will be a new thing.” -- Italo Calvino, The Use of Literature
And C. S. Lewis, wrote, “When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly.” (“On Three Ways of Writing for Children)
The idea of growing up suggests a movement toward a better state. Yes, in some ways, but not entirely. It’s good to read books written for young people and good to hang out with them. I like walking with my contemporary, Mary, as we discuss political campaigns, cholesterol, and calcium, for instance, but yesterday I had fun walking with my thirteen-year-old neighbor, hearing her philosophy on squirrel chasing dogs - they can’t help it, it’s like a video game to them. And did I know anyone who might want some chickens she needs to get rid of? They’re past laying eggs but make nice easy pets, and she has 28, a lot to get in each night. When our dog leashes crossed, instead of passing over the leads as Mary and I do, G. leapt over them, without a break in the conversation.