`My Path is Serpentine'

Most days, I can feel at home in two places -- among books, in a library or shop, and walking in woods and fields. In these settings I know equilibrium, which should not be confused with anything so grand as happiness, contentment or security. Among books and in the outdoors I’m competent because I’m called on only to be myself, so capacity balances demand, and I can enjoy my own company. Elsewhere – say, among unpleasant people or too much noise – I’m too distracted. I never try to read outdoors, however, because my pleasure, rather than doubling, is cancelled. Charles Lamb calls outdoor reading “a strain of abstraction beyond my reach.” In “Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading” he writes:

“I am not much a friend to out-of-doors reading. I cannot settle my spirits to it.”

I took my youngest son to his friend’s fourth birthday party on Saturday, held in an assembly-line fun factory, a sort of indoor amusement park with pizza, cake and inflatable playground equipment whose pumps drone like wasps in a coffee can. From experience I knew to bring a book – in this case, Energy of Delusion, Viktor Shklovsky ‘s deliciously digressive study of Tolstoy and anything else that attracted his attention. Seated on a bench in a corner I enjoyed a few pages and fended off urgings to join an all-male conversation (sports, automobiles), until a professor of American history I know showed up and joined me. I recently edited a portion of her book on the failed railroad strikes of 1886. We talked and I quickly forgot Shlovsky. I never expected such a rescue. Here, too, in easy conversation, I found a home. Later, I read this sentence in Shklovsky:

"My path is serpentine, and the books that I read -- vary."