Without rereading the story, I'm coming up with little moments I missed in my writing of The Alice '65. Little ways of enriching and expanding on the characters without much in the way of addition. For example, Adam learns his associate, Elizabeth, has never read any of Henry James' novels even though her specialization is 19th and 20th century literature. She becomes quite defensive about it...but then near the end of the story, Adam points out to her that reading some of his books could have prevented her from getting into a situation that will hurt her.
That's one of several subtexts running through the story -- that reading can prepare you for the world. Of course, Adam is a voracious reader but he still hides himself away until dragged from the safety of his self-made cocoon and confronts life in all its messiness. Yet he also embodies his father's attitude -- that because he reads, he's a better person and more open to different experiences than one who's closed himself off from anything deemed unimportant.
Reading kept me alive and going, for years. My mother was the type who'd give you all sorts of toys at Christmas but if you wanted a paperback murder mystery, it was, "See if they have it at the library." At least she made sure I had a library card, and I used it. Read everything I could, from Earl Stanley Gardner to Agatha Christie to Ellery Queen to Grace Metalious to Jacqueline Susann to Isaac Asimov to Arthur C. Clark to Clifford D. Simak to...well, you get the picture.
I didn't get into the classics until I was out of college, which was both the right way to go and the wrong way. I couldn't stand Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye and felt Dickens was just too melodramatic and episodic, but I loved the Russian writers and French and Japanese and South American...and even Henry James. I finally understood that certain books are best read at certain times in one's development, and if you come to them at the wrong point in your life, they will not share themselves with you.
I just hope A65 winds up being a book for all ages, not one for a specific time and place.
That's one of several subtexts running through the story -- that reading can prepare you for the world. Of course, Adam is a voracious reader but he still hides himself away until dragged from the safety of his self-made cocoon and confronts life in all its messiness. Yet he also embodies his father's attitude -- that because he reads, he's a better person and more open to different experiences than one who's closed himself off from anything deemed unimportant.
Reading kept me alive and going, for years. My mother was the type who'd give you all sorts of toys at Christmas but if you wanted a paperback murder mystery, it was, "See if they have it at the library." At least she made sure I had a library card, and I used it. Read everything I could, from Earl Stanley Gardner to Agatha Christie to Ellery Queen to Grace Metalious to Jacqueline Susann to Isaac Asimov to Arthur C. Clark to Clifford D. Simak to...well, you get the picture.
I didn't get into the classics until I was out of college, which was both the right way to go and the wrong way. I couldn't stand Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye and felt Dickens was just too melodramatic and episodic, but I loved the Russian writers and French and Japanese and South American...and even Henry James. I finally understood that certain books are best read at certain times in one's development, and if you come to them at the wrong point in your life, they will not share themselves with you.
I just hope A65 winds up being a book for all ages, not one for a specific time and place.
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