After the Readathon

So: I didn’t finish too many books, but I vanquished my year-long reading slump. All I want to do is read.

I type this as I found out that my thesis was accepted by the committee and that I now have a Master’s degree. I am giddy, the first time since the great loss. I have so much gratitude for my incredible friends and professors. Working with them, I felt my literary voice grow. My first instinct was to text my mother.

I completed this readathon with my mother in mind. Reading was something we did together. Every Christmas, we swapped books. The last one she gave me was The Count of Monte Cristo. It was through her and a Christmas readathon that I first encountered The Book of Disquiet, which we all now know is one of my favorite books (second favorite, in fact, after only The Call of the Wild).

As I wrote in the Before part of this readathon, Othello was her second favorite Shakespeare, trailing King Lear, which I will be reading soon. Getting through Othello took longer than I anticipated. I must say: A Midsummer Night’s Dream remains my favorite of the Bard’s. And, yes, I still prefer Goethe’s Faust.

After Othello, I finished The Masnavi. Sometimes I juggle different authors for the title of Favorite Author, and Rumi is one of those names. I curled up on my sofa, sipped my honey lavender tea, and followed the stories of the hare who outwitted the lion, the Bedouin and his wife, the Greek-Chinese paint competition.

I did not get far in Homeland Elegies, nor Ninth House. This is not for lack of quality — both books read smoothly, supple with fine language. It is simply the case that I have the least robust attention span and spend a good deal of my readathons staring outside and thinking.

For the first time, I was joined by the incomparable Vicki and Danielle, two of the most incredible women in my life. Vicki is a skilled writer of literary fiction, and she is a personal influence on my own writing. Danielle is a professor now, sharing her beautiful light with other minds. I met both of them through my mother, and they came on the journey with our family because they are family, too. In the end, they are among the friends who sent flowers, thoughts, love to myself and my sister and our family. They are the reason that I believe in the goodness of humankind.

Even when I am reading tragedies like Othello.