Off the bookshelf

For the longest time I have had a copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (originally published in 1943) sitting on my bookshelf in my home "office". I found this particular copy at the secondhand bookshop (Cornerstone Bookshop) here in town some time ago and bought it because I have wanted to read that book since I was a teen and never got around to it.

The first time I came across this book, it had been loaned to me by my then sister-in-law, Louise Fillman. It just so happens (and I had not specifically planned it this way) that I decided to read this book after I was finished with Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Coincidentally enough, the start of my reading coincided with reuniting with Louise after 25 years of no contact.

This book always reminded me of her, because when she had lent it to me, my father read the back of the book and decided on the spot that it was not an appropriate book for me, at age 16, to read. He made me give it back to her. I think that made me want to read it more. Being the typical 16 year old, I soon forgot about it and life went on. The copy I presently have was publised in 1947 and there is only a very short review of the novel, that has no eye-brow raising content to it. So I don't know what my father read on the back of that copy so long ago that would have raised concern for him. (You know, I never realized they had paperback books that early on.)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a bildungsroman about an 11 year old girl growing up in the early 1900s in, where else, Brooklyn. I haven't gotten too far into it, but am enjoying it immensely so far. This little girl is poor and loves books. The library is her favorite place to be and when not there, the tree-covered metal fire escape of her Williamsburg, Brooklyn tenement where she escapes with her books. I know there is a movie based on this book and had once come across it on tv, but expressly avoided watching it because I wanted to read the book first. I think in this particular case I wanted more keenly to read the book first rather than get a chopped version in the movie because of it's reminder to me of Louise and because of the "mystique" my father had created in forbidding me to read the book. (I should have snuck it into the house to read, but I didn't...chicken liver that I was of getting in trouble.) Perhaps that "mystique" adds to its current enjoyment.

Additionally, I have a particular liking for bildungsroman novels for which I cannot account. Perhaps somehow they fill some void I sense from my own process of maturation. Maybe I identify with the protagonists somehow. Or it could be that their ease of reading makes them fling me back to my past when reading was primarily for enjoyment and not material required for some college course. (Sometimes it is difficult to enjoy a book when you have to read it so quickly because you have a dozen or more others to read in only a few months. Some pleasure is certainly losted in that process.) Whatever the case, I am devouring it (as fast as this very slow reader can), mostly in snippets of time in waiting rooms or when I find I don't have enough time to accomplish a larger task. I have sorely missed the pleasure of reading for enjoyment, since most of my reading of the last decade has been geared toward coursework. I have decided that putting reading for pleasure on hold will not happen again in my life. It is not that I don't enjoy the material I do read for class, but rather the pace has become overwhelming to me after so many years of trying to "do it all". I enjoy learning and I almost always enjoy the novels I am assigned. But there is nothing that compares with curling up with a favorite mug filled to the brim with hot coffee and a good novel to read at leisure. It is one of the pleasures one must take advantage of amidst real life's more numerable, less pleasurable moments.