"Why is the wind, and why is the sea..."

[thanate]

It's raining again, with the lovely cool all day sort of rain that we haven't seen in ages, and I washed up around mid-morning in the room that's temporarily a library and reread most of Patricia McKillip's The Changeling Sea. In the front of the paperback it says "Ann Chatham / Christmas '90" in my middle-school handwriting, which gives me two datapoints: first, that 1990 was the year we went to visit my father's parents in Alpine, TX, flying out on Christmas day, so gift giving got a bit disrupted, and secondly that my mother was busy enough with other things that she didn't have a chance to inscribe the book before giving it. Most of my christmas-present books growing up say, "Merry [X] day of Christmas, [date], from Mama and Daddy," usually, though not always, in my mother's handwriting. And my brother and I each got a book (or occasionally a computer game) for each day of Christmas, so there are quite a few of those.

I don't remember first reading experiences for a lot of books from my childhood, but I remember reading about Peri holed up in her sandy circle in the gorse while sitting in a sandy circle of my own, surrounded by west Texas scrub and late December sun a little way behind my grandparents' low house, with the mountains I always think of when I read about Harry Crewe wanting to run off towards the mountains to the far side of me. Growing up on the east coast with landscapes that tend towards suburbs or trees, I am always surprised by how near the mountains look in the desert; they give the impression that you could just walk out and be there by lunchtime, when really there are several miles of dry ravines, spiky shoulder-high scrub, and barbed wire fences in the way.

The book, over twenty years later, is still beautiful, although I'm not quite sure what the transition was that got me thinking about catalyst books-- the ones that start you reading, deliberately and on your own, because you want what's inside the book enough to make the effort. My brother's catalyst was My Father's Dragon, which I think he got for his half birthday (we were both December babies, so presents happened for Christmas and then again in June) in around second grade. My parents were excellent about reading aloud to us, but after the third time (once jointly, and once each), somebody took a firm stand and said if he wanted more, he had to read it himself. And so he did, three or four times, and was off and running from there.

I didn't really have a catalyst book; I picked up steam gradually, and even as late as college read very slowly compared to other people who read lots of books. But it occurred to me this afternoon that it's possible my father accidentally intercepted this; the third-or-so time (not consecutive) that my mother got to the end of reading me The Hobbit it was a nice sunny afternoon when I was six, and I said, "Again!" She said, "Not right now, I have to make dinner." A few hours later I appealed to my father, who said, "How about if we read you the next one, instead?" And so I imprinted on Eowen rather than reading for myself, and gained a vast vocabulary of words I'd never seen written down. Funny how these things work out.

(For the record, I sincerely hope any daughters I may have will get the chance to imprint on Merida, who seems a much healthier role model for the transition to adulthood, though I will also be sure to teach them how to kilt up their skirts before going rock climbing...)

Comments

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

I love The Changeling Sea. I reread it every year, pretty much. I wish I could write something that small and perfect.