Reading at night; why we read what we read: Graham, Scott, Austen, Trollope, Crabbe even

[misssylviadrake]

Dear friends and readers,

In two days teaching is done. What is the hard thing for me -- though paradoxically I often enjoy it, am exhilarated, it's a strain, an ordeal -- will be over until very late August. And then just one section for the fall, one I've taught many times before. The admiral used to insist it was not over until he finished the

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[misssylviadrake]

I got two kindly meant letters. One asserted that "real life" or physical face-to-face friendships are real and what we know on the Net unreal or false, though I agree much on facebook and other friendship social networking sites is "unsatisfying. Abrupt, disjointed "chats"--a feeling of *absence* more than *presence*; everything theoretically "on" but--dull and empty; not a bit like striking up a friendship and talking and laughing for hours; not a bit like the exchange of ideas in a good discussion, professional or otherwise."

My demur is the rarity with which these ideal congenial interchanges of friendship ever happen. Maybe once every ten years?
Talking and laughing for hours. Maybe with a lover of many years in bed for say half an hour.

So I don't agree that online friendships must be dissatisying nor physical friendship always more satisfying because I know that much of my happiest most gratifying experiences have been through writing selves, sometimes reinforced by meeting, but often not. But the Net is just another mode of communication and it mirrors the rest of the world.

This isolation and being shamed into falling silent is now reinforced in university too where the way I teach my courses, the material I choose is marginalized. A closing off of communication, intelligent culture.

Sylvia