There are times when I feel stretched to the limit, busy-busy-busy, on edge, and in need of a distraction from myself, if only for a few hours. During those times I often turn to engaging but fluffy books that don't require much brain power, books that remain with me until the last page and then are quickly forgotten. These books are often best-selling novels and for good reason--they tell an engrossing story but don't ask much from the reader other than to keep reading. Pretty, brain-candy books.
There are times when I am full of questions about "big" issues and want to fuel my mind with hardier fare, stick-to-the-ribs books that force you to think about important things like meaning, inequality, or injustice, and actually make my brain hurt. Books that might be best-sellers but not necessarily. Books that make you feel smart just by reading their reviews.
Then there are times like these. Times when I feel a bit off-kilter, a bit ungrounded, ever so slightly "off". Times when I suddenly notice that I am disconnected from myself and need to find my way back. During times like these, I turn to Maud Hart Lovelace and the Betsy-Tacy books.
Betsy-Tacy books? Excuse me? Doesn't the name of the series itself suggest something involving pretty, fluffy brain-candy? Seriously?
Yes, gentle reader, Betsy-Tacy books. Before you judge me too harshly, however, I suggest you consider these quotes from well-respected authors praising the series (more can be found on the Betsy-Tacy Society website--and yes, thankfully for people like me, such an organization exists--http://www.betsy-tacysociety.org/).
To quote Anna Quindlen, who also wrote the Foreward for a recent edition of one of the books: "There are three authors whose body of work I have reread more than once over my adult life: Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Maud Hart Lovelace."
According to Laura Lippman, "I reread these books every year, marveling at how a world so quaint—shirtwaists! pompadours! Merry Widow hats!—can feature a heroine who is undeniably modern."
And according to Judy Blume, “Some characters become your friends for life. That’s how it was for me with Betsy-Tacy.”
But enough about them. Let's get back to me and Betsy. I first became acquainted with Betsy Ray and her friends Tacy and Tib as a very small girl, listening to my mother as she read me the first books in the series before bed. As Betsy got older, I did too, and began reading (and rereading) them to myself. The series begins when Betsy is turning five and ends when she is a young, married adult and a published author. The books take place at the turn of the last century, are loosely based on Maud Hart Lovelace's own experiences as a girl, and are filled with whimsical descriptions of a long-ago time. While the historical details were fun to read, none of that was relevant to me.
What was relevant was that Betsy was me, or to put it another way, being allowed into Betsy's head and heart reminded me of what was in my head and heart, too. A writer, a creative girl with "big" thoughts and feelings, a loyal friend and sister/daughter, a somewhat impulsive, often highly stubborn, very loving, but imperfect person who knew in her gut who she was, but just happened to forget that knowledge at times. That was Betsy, that is Betsy. And that is me.
While my experiences of and reaction to each book might be somewhat different depending on my age (reading Betsy's Wedding, for example, is not the same at forty-one as it was at sixteen), what matters, what really, really counts, is how reconnected I feel with my current self for weeks after rereading the series once more.
Interestingly enough, I've heard the same thing from many other women as well, women who may be a generation older or younger than me. They are Betsy, Betsy is them. And that is the brilliance of the books, their ability to reconnect a disparate group of readers to themselves.
And so, during this somewhat ungrounded time of mine, I turn to Betsy Ray once again to do her magic. And I have faith that she will. After all, she's always been there before to catch me if I fall.
0 comments:
Post a Comment