Powerful Books

Sitrep: 1x 15 minute walk

A topic I've been thinking on for awhile is what gets people started reading, and what keeps them reading? Why do we keep coming back for more? For me, I seem to get some kind of emotional connection or satisfaction when I read. Maybe it has to do with my earliest memories of books, all of them wrapped up in family, if you think about it:

- Dad holding and reading to me
- My 6th or 7th birthday where Mom & Dad got me the first 5 books in the Bobbsey Twin series
- Dad coming home from work with another book for me
- Mom reading to us kids
- Mom getting us our bilingual (English/Spanish) Fairy Tale books (the Ugly Duckling was my favorite!)
- Family trips to the library
- Endless summer days bicycling to the library with a sibling or friend or by myself when I was older
- My sister and I reading late into the night, with our secret code of knocking on the walls to indicate “meet in the hallway” (to share a good/funny part) or “going to bed” or “finished book”
- Sneaking books into church to tuck into the Missalette so I could read during Mass (until my brother tried this and got caught…that was the end of sitting in the balcony on our own!)

We joke, my sister and I, that the best presents for us growing up were books. Mom despaired, I think, of her two daughters that wanted books over clothes or makeup. When we unwrapped the book, we’d squeal, caress the cover, open it to the inside flap and read the blurb, no matter how many times we’d already read it before, finish the back inside flap, then gently close the book, caress the back, and regretfully, softly, place it on the floor next to us to continue with the Christmas festivities. [g]

But as much as these memories make me smile, I got a reminder yesterday of other ways that books have affected my life. Stronger, and not as “nice” ways depending on your point of view. Ways that have made me uncomfortable about who I am, what I believe, my perceptions of the world around me.

A friend asked me to look up a Saint for her, Saint Dymphna. I thought it was made up, but was wrong. Dymphna is the patron saint for the mentally disabled. Appropriate, because that’s the field my friend works in. She wanted to know the reason/backstory for this Saint. So I got to rooting around online, and going through a list of Saints and the Beatified and those on track to become Saints in the Catholic Church, I came upon the three children of Fatima. I’ve always been fascinated by that story, from an early age. Maybe because we lived in the Terceira Islands, maybe because Mom’s from Spain, who knows. But it’s always fascinated me.

I distinctly remember reading a book about the Miracle of Fatima, a sort of biography of what happened and the three children. I was drawn to the second girl, the youngest of the three at 10, Jacinta. She died quite young, in the hospital. One of her greatest wishes was to receive the sacrament of the Holy Communion. Yet the priests denied her because she was too young. Even on her death bed, when she begged, they denied her that and the Sacrament of the Last Rites. And she died that night.

Being near /the same age as her, I was horrified, terrified. Here was this pious little girl, trying to the best of her ability (and from what I read now succeeding at) being good and following the dictates of the church, and they wouldn’t let her have First Communion. I think that was the beginning of my disillusionment with the Catholic Church, and perhaps organized religion in general. Even in my “religious” years in high school/beginning of college, there was that seed of doubt. Maybe that’s why I was (still am) curious about other faiths, religions, ways of believing. Who knows. I think it was also the beginning of my sense of injustice in the world, that things don't always have a nice tidy ending, things don't always work out. It probably didn't help that within a few years I'd read the Diary of Anne Frank.

Anyway. It just reminded me that as much as I focus on the fun of reading, I don't think too much about the ways books have helped me to grow, have challenged me, and have stretched my horizons.

It's funny the things we think about

Sitrep: 1x Arms, 1x Cardio
Yay! I'm REVing again. :)

When I was 9 or 10 years old, while Dad was stationed in Germany, we went on vacation to Holland and Amsterdam. I don't remember much about the trip, it was so long ago. But I do remember 2 parts vividly: the shoe carving factory where we got our own shoes with our names engraved on them, and our visit to the Anne Frank House.

At the time I had, if anything, a vague knowledge of WWII and the holocaust. I'm not sure I even knew who Anne Frank was. I remember being intrigued that a girl, just a few years older than me, and her family lived up there for so long. Hidden away in fear for their lives. The secret stairs behind the bookcase were so tiny and steep and narrow. I remember thinking that, even though at that age I was pretty tiny myself. And once upstairs in the secret annex, it seemed so small and cramped. To this day I'm not sure of the exact size & space...there were so many people on the tour it seemed the rooms were packed. Those are my memories of the trip.

Being a voracious reader already, I asked my parents to get me a copy of Anne Frank's diary from the gift shop. Which they did. And I read it. Was it too early an age to read the book? I don't know. Realistically it's probably what started my interest in WWII and the Holocaust and history in general. But the ending haunted me. Saddened me. Frustrated me. And many years later would leave me feeling sort of betrayed (for reasons I'll get too). I would turn time and again to those last pages that reported what happened after the families were turned over to the Nazis. Especially the few short paragraphs that "described" what happened to the girls. It told how the family was separated, how their mother died, where the girls ended up, and how they died of typhoid in their beds just days before the camp was liberated. (I remember one of the girls died from falling out of her bed trying to get water for the sister). It made it sound so...humane. So...clean. I was haunted by the unfairness of dying just days before liberation, of their parents dying too, of the whole thing. I'd re-write the ending in my head as I went to sleep or just while daydreaming.

Once I really got into the history and horror of the concentration camps (we also went to Dachau on another vacation), it started to bother me, that portrayal of the girls' deaths. It seemed a rather peaceful way to go, which was nothing like what I was learning. But I never really thought about it. Even when I heard that her father had edited out parts unfavorable to the mother, etc. It wasn't until a few years ago that I really and truly realized the depth of the deception at the end of that book, when I watched the 2001 movie Anne Frank, The Whole Story. The stark, brutal inhumanity of the concentration camps...

Even though I was an adult and knew it couldn't have been that way, I just felt so lied to by the book. How could they have done that? Was it for Otto Frank's sanity? Did he need to believe that's how his girls died? Was it not known, really, how bad that it was? The details, the deception, were not needed. They could have just said that the girls died at Bergen-Belsen.

Anyway. Not sure where this came from, but I was thinking about it when I got up this morning. Bizarre. I'd like to read the diary again, but am hesitant for fear I'll have some other childhood illusion/impression shattered. And there are so many editions now, when I looked into it I couldn't figure out which one had the most of her actual diary with the least amount of editing.

It's funny, isn't it, the things we remember, what makes an impression.