I Had to Fight to Read :: Personal Narrative, Autobiographical Essay

It was summer, stinking hot in a sm every last(predicate) town and I was fifteen and bored. The town librarian had been giving me grief since I was football team and in the sixth grade, when she issued her basic decree that I wasnt old becoming to check out what became the first of a long line of books I had to fight to read. It was also the first of many times when one or both of my parents trudged down to the library to insist equally firmly that she had no right to restrict my choices as I had their permission to read some(prenominal) I wanted.   The summer of my thirtieth year was especially difficult for this low beleaguered woman. Her worst day came when I insisted on checking out all of Proust, every one of Thomas Wolfes novels, and while I was at it, Joyces Ulysses as well. afterward all, I reasoned, I had two weeks to keep these books and I was a profligate reader.   So I took them home, to the old iron glider under the word of mouth arbor, and I propped mys elf up on a bunch of pillows and dug in with the same glee most deal reserve for hot misrepresent sundaes. I fanned the pages and decided to read Look Homeward, Angel first because I like the way all those words leapfrogged over for each one other on every single page. Wow The exuberant quicken and gush of all those words The torrent was overwhelming, the words blurred, I was losing the meaning. I knew I had to slow the pace somehow before I would consent to admit that the librarian was probably right and perhaps I truly wasnt old enough to make sense of it.   And so I glum to Proust, finding relief within his exquisitely nuanced precision and pacing. My love of all things French was born with Proust, as I marveled at his privileged people and their luminous lives. Who were they really, I wondered, and was all of Paris like this, and if so, how soon could I get there? For the next two weeks, I cut impale and forth between that unlikely duo, Wolfe and Proust, sweating fr om Julys heat and the emotional usurpation of Brother Bens death (best read when one is fifteen), then cooling impinge on with the soothingly elegant rituals of Monsieur Swann and company.