Reading alums

One of the best parts of being a school librarian for me is connecting with an alum and once more talking about reading. I had lunch yesterday with Laura who is an English major at Williams. After the catching up on school news and old friends, we talked about her upcoming semester with three courses on the novel. She is currently reading Emma in preparation. After she had read Pride and Prejudice her freshman year, I got a wonderfully delirious e-mail: ”I knew I could count on you to truly understand. Imagine the emotion, excitement and absolute pleasure of a first-time reader. I felt guilty enjoying the book so much.” I imagineI babbled similarly to the teacher who first handed me the same novel.
I envy her the experience of Emma – meeting Miss Bates for the first time! Before I knew Kilpling was an Austen fan, I read the “Janeites” and was bemused when his soldiers assigned Austen characters and irony to the people they met: “I was past carin’. But [the grey-headed nursing Sister] went on talkin’ and talkin’ about the war, an’ her pa in Ladbroke Grove, an’ ’how strange for ’er at ’er time of life to be doin’ this work with a lot o’ men, an’ next war, ’ow the nurses ’ud ’ave to wear khaki breeches on account o’ the mud, like the Land Girls; an’ that reminded ’er, she’d boil me an egg if she could lay ’ands on one, for she’d run a chicken-farm once. You never ’eard anythin’ like it—outside o’ Jane. It set me off laughin’ again. Then a woman with a nose an’ teeth on ’er, marched up. ‘What’s all this?” she says. “What do you want?” “Nothing,” I says, “only make Miss Bates, there, stop talkin’ or I’ll die.”
In The History Boys, Hector responds to a student “The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.” Austen has given me some of my best moments in reading and is now doing the same for Laura. Our lunch chat was so satisfying. I wish this reading experience for all my students and that they return to talk about it!