Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books ~Maureen Corrigan
–published 2005
–Vintage Books
–201 pages
–4/5 stars
Last week at work, amidst a pile of manila envelopes filled with endless stacks of paper requiring my signature, I found one containing this book. I knew without looking that this was sent up through interoffice mail by my dear friend Pat, who years ago actually worked for me. Pat and I had offices next to one another and we bonded over a mutual love of books, a kindred spirit discovery brought to light by Dava Sobel’s wonderful book, Galileo’s Daughter. My relationship with Pat is one that I think reflects the kind of relationships I wish I had with my grandmothers growing up. That isn’t to disparage my grandmother who has passed on, nor the one who remains with us. I love both very dearly and both have been kind to me, and a source of genuine humor. But we weren’t close friends, which is something I cherish in my relationship with Pat. In addition to being a book about books, which always catches my eye, the fact that she sent it up meant that I began reading it that very day.
Maureen Corrigan is a book reviewer for NPR and writes for the Village Voice, among other things. I wondered going in whether I would find her to be someone I could relate to or if her knowledge and book tastes would be aloof and unrepresentative of the many fictional worlds I like to inhabit. I was pleased to discover a balanced amalgam of both. Not that she is truly aloof, but Maureen Corrigan certainly reads in a critical manner that I do not, discovering things in books that we’ve read in common that I hadn’t even thought of. Mostly things I found myself agreeing with, an occasional few that I didn’t. I also found myself enjoying listening to her tell parts of her life story through her reading experiences, so much so that it did not take me long to finish this 200 page book, despite the ridiculously tiny font used by the publisher.
“Books are wayward. You can begin a book assuming you’re entering one kind of world, getting one kind of message, only to find out that beneath that cover story lurks another kind of tale–or two, or three–altogether. Books can turn us readers around, mess with our directional signals, deposit us, drained and bewildered, on completely foreign shores. A forgettable book disappoints or merely meets our conscious expectations; unforgettable books takes us to places we didn’t even suspect existed, places we may not have even wanted to go.”
I quickly lost track of all the pages that contained quotes that I wanted to remember. Another sign of a good book, in my estimation.
“This, my own book, is my attempt to figure out some of the consequences of my prolonged exposure to books and to explore how reading has transformed my life, mostly for the better, sometimes for the worse.”
Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading is broke up into four sections, in which Maureen Corrigan talks about what she calls Women’s Extreme Adventure Stories; examines how classical literature and the hard-boiled detective novel portray the idea of working for a living; presents literary alternatives to the typical romantic plot; and examines how the Catholic martyr stories she read growing up affected, and continue to affect, her life. She then closes with an epilogue about events in her own life around the time of the September 11th, 2001 tragedy.
If someone were to present those categories to me, I’m not sure I would initially be drawn towards reading the book. But Corrigan grabbed my attention in the introduction where she briefly outlines her goals for each section of the book, and I have to admit that an “NPR snob” (I’m using that term affectionately) who professed a love for hard-boiled detective fiction was the true clincher, as I enjoy that genre of books myself. That fact alone convinced me that despite the fact that Maureen Corrigan may travel in intellectual circles much different than my own, that at heart she was down to earth in her love of a good book. And that is exactly what I found.
In the pages of this book Maureen covers books from Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters to Dashiell Hammett, P.D. James and Dorothy Sayers, to more contemporary authors like Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton and back again. If I hadn’t already found myself really liking Maureen Corrigan, the fact that she took Hammett’s wonderful book, The Thin Man, on her honeymoon would have sold me. That isn’t to say that my entire experience with Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading was peaches and cream. There were moments when I found myself disagreeing with her, and occasionally found her viewpoint quite different from my own, but even those moments were entertaining for me as a reader. Her style of presenting her ideas was not confrontational, instead it compels you to examine things in light of your own experience while seeing a side of things you perhaps never saw before. And while Maureen Corrigan spends a lot of the book discussing literature in relation to the plight of females throughout the ages (something I certainly cannot entirely relate to as a male), I never felt like it was a preachy, political book with an aggressive feminist agenda. It wasn’t that at all, really. She was just examining her own life in light of the things that were important to her in the literature that formed her.
Taken as a whole I enjoyed this book very much. Which makes the following story all the more funny. I ran into Pat in the hallway downstairs a couple of days ago and proceeded to tell her how much I was enjoying this book. Her response to me was that she sent the book up without any explanation as to why she sent it to me, but that she had tried to get into it and just couldn’t, and wondered if I was interested in giving it a try. I couldn’t help but laugh. I think I have since convinced her that she needed to get through the introduction and get into the meat of the first chapter and I believe she too would be hooked.
To close this presentation of Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading, I am going to do something I never do–I’m going to quote the last lines of the book. These follow a quote from a writer discussing the NY city skyline of D-Day, which Corrigan is recalling as her own NY skyline changed after the events of 9/11. I don’t believe this will in any way spoil the reading experience for you, but feel free to just move on to the comments section at this point if you do not wish to read this.
Such is the power of words, of writing, of books. Words can summon up a skyline from the dark; they can bring back the people you loved and will always yearn for. They can inspire you with possibilities you otherwise would never have imagined; they can fill your head with misleading fantasies. They can give you back your seemingly seamless past and place it right alongside your chaotic present.
“But that only happens in books”, my mother, pretty much immune to the power of the written word, would say.
Exactly. That’s why I can’t stop reading them.
Heh. I consider myself an NPR snob, and I especially love “Fresh Air” (with Terry Gross) and “Here & Now” (with Robin Young). That said, NPR book reviews are nearly always fascinating. That said, I’m not sure if I’d enjoy something like this. Well, maybe I would enjoy it, but I’m not sure if I’d want to read something like this as opposed to the plethora of other books waiting for my grubby fingers and greedy eyes.
Still, great review, and an excellent quote to finish with, too!
Hey, I already own this book! Now you make me want to actually read it.
Logankstewart: Fresh Air and Here and Now are both great shows. In fact there is a lot of local and national programming on NPR that I love. I understand what you mean about not sure about reading something like this. Even though I find that I generally enjoy books like this it is not something I would have grabbed off the bookshelf. It was only my misunderstanding of it being recommended by a trusted friend that got me to crack right into it over the other books I was reading and want to read.
Jim: I would certainly be interested in your thoughts on this one.
Carl,
When I saw the title of your post, which contains the book’s title, I thought my sentiments exactly. I try to do the same thing in my own reviews, to use the books I read as a catalyst to tell my own stories. What’s really been interesting to me is how the books I read and the blogging I do lead to all kinds of unexpected discoveries and outcomes. Each book, then, in a sense becomes more important and meaningful in my life, and I’m rewarded by another dimension to the (already past) experience of reading it.
Susan: Yes, you kind of touch on some of what I observed in Maureen’s story and what I got out of it. It was especially nice to see a person who might be considered an ‘intellectual’ who shared genuine stories about meaningful interactions with books that the elite might right off as trash. I continue to meet all manner of you fellow bloggers who are intelligent and have a wide variety of reading interests, which is great, and it is nice to see that some of the people I might quickly lump into that “critic” category have more in common with “us” than with “them”.
Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading… great title which grabbed me because well, it hits a little too close to home. 😉 The book itself sounds interesting, but I usually have problems reading non-fiction. I tend to scan, and skim through the pages. With that said, I think I will, at some point in time, give this one a read, or at least a glance because the quotes you used are great, particularly the ending one. Of course we (I) read because of all that can happen in books which cannot happen in reality especially my desire to be a “go-forth an conquer woman”, you know, those awesome, strong, dedicated, persevering women in fantasy books (by large, and some in historical fiction) who can totally hold there own.
Okay, here is my ignorance, I am not real familiar with NPR so is this radio stuff? That means her book reviews on radio? or is it print or both? yes, I could google this, but I don’t want to. Either way, have you read/listened (if that is the case) to her reviews? I wonder what they are really like.
Oh, I am definitely going to have to pick this up. I often think that my inner life would be much poorer were it not for the scads of books I’ve devoured over the years.
I’m so glad you made me aware of this book – the ways reading and life connect or fail to connect are so intriguing, aren’t they? I’ll definitely look out for it. Those quotes are spot on too – thanks for sharing them.
Kathleen: You’re welcome, there were some really memorable quotes in this book.
Daphne: I hope you enjoy it. Not sure if you’ve read my reviews of Anne Fadiman’s books, Ex Libris and At Small, At Large, but both of those are great books of essays, many of which have to do with books and reading, and I highly recommend them.
Ibeeg: Yes, NPR is National Public Radio, generally in the 80’s or lower 90’s on your FM dial. There are several wonderful programs on NPR: Fresh Air, Here and Now, This American Life, Car Talk (hilariously funny, even for those who car nothing about car repair), Lake Woebegone Days, and there are usually local and national music programs that highlight specific kinds of music: I’ve discovered some great musicians because of NPR. One of my favorite of the radio shows is This American Life. There are two seasons of this that they did on video that you can get from Netflix and perhaps the rental places. If you get a chance to watch them, I can’t recommend it highly enough. And you can listened to archived broadcasts of the show on NPR’s website. They are slice of life broadcasts that rarely fail to fascinate.
This one looks familiar, but it’s not in my personal library catalog so apparently I don’t own it. Not that I have to own everything, it just looks that way to visitors to the house – or at least usually, when the place isn’t filling up with boxes and shelves are getting empty. So I snuck a little story of my own in there.
I think Susan has the right of it in her comment. Absolutely. And I agree with you, the list of sections, “Women’s Extreme Adventure Stories; examines how classical literature and the hard-boiled detective novel portray the idea of working for a living; presents literary alternatives to the typical romantic plot; and examines how the Catholic martyr stories she read growing up affected, and continue to affect, her life.” put me off immediately. I immediately thought, when I read that, the hard-boiled detective novel does NOT portray the idea of working for a living. That’s the grocer who puts in long hours in his store. The hard-boiled novel is about the knight errant, honor and Right.
But as I continued to read your review I backed off on that initial negative, and find I may be interested enough to get it from the library, some day.
Richard: LOL! I imagine I would feel the same way as your other visitors! As a reader of the hard-boiled detective novel, I have no doubt that you would find that section of the book quite interesting. And the way in which she defines “work” is spot on with her assertion, which to strip it down to bare basics is that in the detective novel you often find a person who puts in a great deal of time, has personal pride in their chosen profession, is doing it for some kind of personal code or creedo, etc. rather than to get wealthy. She obviously goes into much more detail than that and it is much more interesting, but hopefully that gives you at least some idea of it.
As I said, had I not been under the misapprehension that a close friend of mine sent it up to me because she loved it, I certainly wouldn’t have been drawn to read it based on what the book’s jacket advertised it to be, nor would I have continued on after the introduction. But I am very glad that I was under that impression when I began because it ended up being a very interesting experience that I wouldn’t have otherwise had, and now I’ll be interested in listening closer in the future for Maureen Corrigan’s reviews.
This sounds fantastic! Especially the last line – I’m really glad you included that bit 🙂
Amy: As soon as I read it I just knew I had to include it in the review, particularly for those who would not get around to reading this book.
I have a thing for books about books (stuff found in the literary theory section). I just wrote a review of Novel Destinations, which is full of great ideas for including literary landmarks on your travels. I’ve also had my eye on Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust series forever. What can I say, I’m a total book geek!
Great review! I’m definitely adding this one to my TBR 🙂
Yep, me too, another book on the To-Buy pile! You are reading some very good books right now, Carl. 😀