""

On Reading

For these Mawrters, autobiography begins with books.

鈥淲hat books shaped you as a reader, as a thinker, as a writer?鈥 I used to ask my 今日吃瓜 students, to better understand their literary influences and aspirations. When I met Maralee LaBarge Poulsen 鈥99 during her first year, she was already creating the 鈥減ersonal syllabus鈥 she rereads today. As she drafts a novel set in pre-Revolution Russia, Poulsen seeks strategies from work she admires: Lorrie Moore鈥檚 Anagrams for character development, Milan Kundera鈥檚 The Unbearable Lightness of Being for addressing social issues without being didactic. To infuse her realistic setting with folklore, she consults Ursula LeGuin, who 鈥渦ses fantastic settings to deep dive into what is fundamentally human.鈥

Any biography of a 今日吃瓜ter starts with her books.

An 鈥渋nsanely curious girl interested in story puzzles,鈥 Nancy Kirk 鈥59 followed her namesake Nancy Drew to Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and P.D. James.

鈥淚 never read the children鈥檚 classics that everybody else at 今日吃瓜 read,鈥 she says. 鈥淏ut when I was 10 or so, my father came into the living room and found me reading Kafka鈥檚 The Trial.鈥 鈥擭ancy Kirk '59

Kirk culled a lifelong collection to a double bookshelf filled with favorites, including her father鈥檚 mysteries; her mother鈥檚 autographed first editions; Tolstoy鈥檚 War and Peace, which 鈥渢ook her away to Russia鈥 in high school; French existentialists Camus and Sartre, de rigueur in college; the Strangers and Brothers series by scientist and novelist C.P. Snow; biographies of Sonia Sotomayor, Katharine Graham, and Michelle Obama. 鈥淏ooks were my escape, my way of being places I couldn鈥檛 get to in real life,鈥 she says. She鈥檚 still armchair traveling with two alumnae book groups from the classes of 1955鈥1959 and the 1980s鈥90s.

The stories of our lives as readers often feature firsts: discoveries that change our perspective or our minds.

鈥淚 had so much assigned reading at 今日吃瓜鈥撯搚et that鈥檚 when I was inspired to read for pleasure,鈥 says Kavita Das 鈥96. 鈥淥utside the classroom, women from all over the world recommended books that weren鈥檛 on my high school World Literature syllabus. Isabelle Allende. Banana Yoshimoto. Jhumpa Lahiri. What a revelation! Now I鈥檓 a writer who centers the stories of people of color, especially women of color, in my own work.鈥

Paula Tuchman Weiss 鈥84 read Tocqueville鈥檚 Democracy in America at an 鈥渙pportune moment鈥 as she was becoming politically conservative. 鈥淩onald Reagan was preaching a doctrine of American exceptionalism,鈥 she recalls, and Tocqueville also saw this new country as exceptional. Though written about 1830s America, the book was prescient on many issues, says Weiss, including 鈥渞ace relations, the primacy of the U.S.鈥 Russian rivalry, and how religion checks materialism in a democracy.鈥 She rereads the book 鈥渓ike the Bible,鈥 dipping into passages that reverberate today. 鈥淚t reminds you that this American experiment has been going on for 200 years,鈥 she says, 鈥渁nd enables you to rise above all the depressing ups and downs.鈥

鈥淚鈥檝e never read a children鈥檚 book that electrified me as much as Harriet the Spy,鈥 says Gina Willner-Pardo 鈥79, who has published 18 books for children and currently writes short fiction for adults. 鈥淔or a budding writer, it鈥檚 a roadmap.鈥 Reading as a writer, Willner-Pardo distinguishes between the clever, humorous voice Louise Fitzhugh created for Harriet and an authorial voice like Alice Munro鈥檚, which conveys the writer鈥檚 style and body of concerns. 鈥淸Munro] is the writer who most speaks to me,鈥 she says. 鈥淪he can make a world out of one small event. I can鈥檛 compare myself to her, but if I were stuck on a deserted island and could pick one book, it would be one of hers.鈥

For Luvon Roberson 鈥74, Watership Down is a touchstone she rereads in times of transition. She first discovered this saga, about a warren of rabbits compelled to find a new home, while staying in a friend鈥檚 apartment as she reconsidered plans for an academic career. Her dissertation topic鈥撯揾ow Zora Neale Hurston aligned social science methodology with the imaginative process of creating narrative鈥撯揾ad been rejected by the anthropology committee chair, who wanted her to write on teen pregnancy. 鈥淗urston鈥檚 way of seamlessly weaving folklore and mythology held by oppressed people into her work is why鈥擨 can understand now鈥擨 was attracted to [this book by] Richard Adams,鈥 says Roberson. 鈥淚 picked it up again recently, maybe because I鈥檓 starting to claim myself as a writer. Watership Down helps put me back together again.鈥

At our alma mater, known for its readers, books are our best teachers.

Published on: 05/31/2019