Some books are both fast and slow.
It is terribly easy to gallop through these short vignettes, wanting to know what happened, find out about a person’s troubles and the lessons we could learn. It is easy because they are short and you can read them in those small gaps in life, such as waiting for a bus, or for a meeting,on the other hand you can stretch out for an evening. So you don’t have to put aside long stretches of time but if you do the cumulative effect of the stories becomes more compelling. In the end I read this as a couple of snacks and two longer meals. Then it was gone.
Now it has actually been some time since I finished it (my idea of writing one of these posts a week fell by the wayside a long time ago) and so coming back to it I had to remember what I had read. With one exception I had forgotten most of the details. I could remember various incidents and some of the conclusions, but the details were gone. This meant I had to reread but this time I didn’t rush. I thought more about each encounter, tried to align what I was reading with my own experiences and therefore paused and thought. It was a more considered experience and so the book was both fast and slow.
Doing this I remembered something I learnt at school. It is an odd thing that the main lessons I have taken from school have nothing to do with the subjects but were little things that came out of conversations between teachers and the class. It was always slightly to the side of the curriculum, when they talked about their own experiences, passed on a bit of wisdom, or just something they found amusing. In one such session an english teacher said that the way he got inside a book was to read it quickly, first, as an overview, to get out of the way the question of what happens next. Then comes the main, careful read, paying attention to what had been missed. Afterwards there is a final flick through, picking out random passages, remembering how they fitted in and the incidents surrounding them. Now this is not unusual advice (in fact it’s pretty standard) but it has stayed with me because I believed he was passing on something from his own experience.
And this is what this book is about - the passing on of experience. A therapist extracting enough information from people so they could make sense of their stories. The chapters are short, just a few pages, so that they can focus on a single story with a clear lesson or theme. With 30 stories there are many lessons but only, of course, if you remember them and as I found out it is quite easy for them to merge.
But this brings me back to the chapter I remembered most clearly when I first read the book. It was unusual in not being based on a therapy, instead it was more abstract about the use of praise or criticism in childhood development. But like every other chapter it is anchored by stories of people’s behaviour. It starts with Grosz remembering a nursery assistant giving too much, unwarranted praise to his child and him being at a loss as to how to explain that he would prefer it if she didn’t praise so much. This is at odds with the current climate, which seems to demand the scattering of praise, thinking it makes a child feel good about themselves and is therefore encouraging. But if it is given without thought empty praise, like thoughtless criticism, is an expression of indifference. This point is illustrated with the observation of an 80 year old remedial teacher.
“I once watched Charlotte with a four year old boy, who was drawing. When he stopped and looked up at her - perhaps expecting praise - she smiled and said, ‘There’s a lot of blue in your picture.’ He replied ‘It’s a pond near my grandmother’s house - there is a bridge.’ He picked up a brown crayon and said ‘Here, I’ll show you.’ Unhurried she talked to the child, but more importantly she observed and listened. She was present.
Being present builds a child’s confidence because it lets the child know that she is worth thinking about. Without this, a child might come to believe that her activity is just a means to gain praise, rather than an end in itself. How can we expect a child to be attentive if we have no been attentive to her?”
Who knows why I remembered this particular passage out of all the others but it is a good example of the virtues of the book and the way it moves from the personal to the general, from observation to context and finishes with an insight. All in a very gentle way. Just like Charlotte Stiglitz, the remedial teacher the book is the result of a lifetime spent paying attention.
First Published
2013
Link to Last Book
Most of the stories are about recovering memories and then making sense of them.
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