Vicarious

identity photogr@aphy, via flickr.com

When I read things others recommend me, I connect words and passages to whomever suggested the book, try to find the pieces of their personality buried deep into others' words. It's puzzling. When I read Vertigo, by WG Sebald, I tried to connect it to my friend Beetle. 

It wasn't tough. WG Sebald traffics in the intangibles, the beguiling difficulty of memories. Nothing is ever linear; Sebald seeks more global truths and ideas about thought and perspective. That's Beetle, who works on projects and thinks and dissects her world into charmed pieces. That's truly how she is, and now I've glimpsed that through others' words.

Beetle tells me that it is like watching a movie you like with someone who hasn't seen it -- modeling it through their eyes is a form of enjoying it. She likes that part best. I agree. It amplifies the experience. 

When Beetle came to New York I took her to many of my favorite restaurants. I explained that it was like I enjoyed the experience because she loved what I loved. Our tastes intersected.

Beetle wondered -- because someone else suggested this -- if she should just recommend a book without saying exactly why, so that the person has a fresh experience. Afterwards they could maybe compare experiences, but the impulse, the why is too strong. I'm always asked why when I recommend something, because time is now so valuable that it makes no sense to read something without knowing whether it's good.

But sometimes it just doesn't work out. Tastes don't always collide, and maybe it's all right that whomever didn't notice the subtle good aspects of your miraculous find. 

But I do know that I suppressed a bad review of my favorite book a few years ago -- it was so dear to me then, and I couldn't bear anybody saying anything bad about it. That impulse seems stupid now. That book was The Shadow Lines. While its non-linear pronoun-confused narrative struck something deep within me, it also proved to be a frustrating read for most of my friends. Now I realize that this novel is not the same thing for everyone, but somehow that scene, where our narrator looks helplessly over at the woman he loves, stripping down in front of him, to know that he can never have that body but have him stand there shaking and helpless, seemed dramatic and amazing to me. My friend found it odd, a little sad, but mostly tedious.