Tolkien, Lewis, and more

When I was in second grade I began reading the Chronicles of Narnia. The way it happened, I had helped my stepmom clean the house and when I came home from school the next Monday, Mom had bought me a book as "payment." It was a pretty nifty strategy on her part, associating books with rewards, otherwise it might have been chocolate, and I'd be diabetic, or money and I'd be a penny pinching stockbroker on Wall Street. Instead, I'm poorer and a little thinner, but have an office lined with books . . . and fell in love with Lewis's work and fantasy literature in general.

Through second grade I worked my way through the Chronicles of Narnia, getting bogged down in the Dawn Treader (Voyage of the Dawn Plodder?), but then finding that Silver Chair was my favorite book of the series (though some critics say this one has the most disjointed plot and moves the slowest.) While I was going through the Chronicles, a professor came to our house to visit and found out I'd been reading the Chronicles of Narnia. "Really?" he said. "Well, you should read the Hobbit." Soon after I'd finished the Last Battle, and Narnia and the wardrobe were behind me (though not without a sadness and a longing for more), a copy of The Hobbit showed up in my room one Monday after my parents had gone shopping.

I remember staying up late to read The Hobbit after it was long past time to go to bed. My folks was leave the door to my room cracked, with a light on in the hallway, and light would spill across my pillow. The steps to the bedrooms in our house creaked, so I usually had ample warning when my dad was coming to see if I had fallen asleep yet. One night I had gotten so engrossed reading about Bilbo taking on the spiders in Mirkwood forest that I looked up to see my dad looking at me through the crack in the door, clearing his throat. I tried to shove the book under my pillow like I had done other times, but it was too late--I was caught.

Dad came in and sat by the bed, and tried to cough so he could suppress a laugh. "We encouraged you to read," Dad said, "and we're glad that you do, but you also need to get some sleep. Reading in the dark like this will hurt your eyes." Dad was angry, but not too angry, and I think he was also a little pleased that I was breaking the rules by reading and not doing drugs like other third graders.

Seeing how much I was getting into fantasy literature, my stepmom took another tack. "We like that you're reading," she said, "but you need to read more than just fantasy." The next week she bought me a book on Paracelsus (I think), and then later one on Erasmus, and encouraged me to read histories, biographies, whatever I could get my hands on. My dad had also encouraged me in first grade to start reading the Bible. I also got hooked reading about ancient cultures, especially the Egyptians and "lost cultures."

At the public school we had a librarian named Mrs. West who would read to us once a week when we'd come to the library to check out books. Usually it was just a time when the boys would kick each other in the groin to see if we'd flinch. Mrs. West had short, white hair, was tall and fairly thin, but had sharp eyes and an even sharper wit, and could read stories better than most people I knew. She was attractive in a lean, sharp way, like a tree or a bird.

She seemed to take a liking to me. I told her I'd read Lewis and Tolkien, and asked conspiratorially if she had any other books like that, and she said, "I have just the thing." She introduced me to Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles (a fantasy set in a Welsh-like world) and Madeleine L'Engle's Time trilogy (now a quintet), and I also read about black-and-white horror movies and became fascinated with monsters. When I asked to borrow a copy of Shakespeare's plays when I was in seventh grade, I think she beamed and teared up at the same time. I looked into it because I'd met another professor, John, who thought I should beging reading Shakespeare. (honestly I started the Merchant of Venice, and couldn't understand the play script, so put it down after a few pages. It wouldn't be until my sophomore year that I'd be reintroduced to Shakespeare when we'd go to Purdue to see Romeo and Juliet, and I'd be talking with the girl I had a crush on all through high school, Tracy.)

John had recommended other fantasy books to me, and I'd read Piers Anthony's Xanth novels, then went to the town library to read David Eddings' Mallorean and Belgariad, and began reading Celtic, Greek and Norse mythology, Arthurian legends, Robin Hood, and Nathaniel Hawthorne (The House of the Seven Gables, though since I hadn't read The Scarlet Letter yet, I was lost.) I also discovered Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and Frank Herbert's Dune.

My hunger for books and stories was insatiable. We lived in a town of 800, and my parents let very few friends from school come over to the house, or vice versa. One time my friend Jay was going to come stay at my house when my stepmom said, "He can't. I'm doing laundry today." She'd put me off the whole week on the decision, then backed out at the last minute. We also traveled a lot during the summer, and on the long roadtrips I would read a book, since I didn't have any brothers yet to share the backseat with. Fantasy literature was a way to escape the town, escape my parents, and escape my lack of close friendships with other kids my age. I longed for an adventure, a quest, to go rescue some beautiful girl so she could see how brave, and not how shy, I was.

The original Chronicles and Lord of the Rings still sit on my shelves, now in my office next to hundreds, if not 1000+ other books. They're worn, discolored, and well used (I've read them over 7-8 times each, of those copies alone) but I still have them with me. I've read a lot in general, have written papers and will soon teach a class on these books, but still come back to them, reminders of an early love and a desire to experience the world, and they sit on my shelf, carrying hints of rainy fall nights, or winters with a blanket and a book and something hot to drink, or lazy summer days either outside or in my room, dreaming of being a hero, of adventure, of danger, and of a quest big enough to drop everything else just to pursue it.