Wrapping Up a Life of Reading
William Maxwell:
Before I am ready to call it quits I would like to reread every book I have ever deeply enjoyed, beginning with Jane Austen and going through shelf after shelf of the bookcases, until I arrive at the ‘‘Autobiographies’’ of William Butler Yeats. As it is, I read a great deal of the time. I am harder to please, though. I see flaws in masterpieces. Conrad indulging in rhetoric when he would do better to get on with it. I would read all day long and well into the night if there were no other claims on my time. Appointments with doctors, with the dentist. The monthly bank statement. Income tax returns. And because I don’t want to turn into a monster, people. Afternoon tea with X, dinner with the Y’s. Our social life would be a good deal more active than it is if more than half of those I care about hadn’t passed over to the other side.