Solo palabras

WASHINGTON SQUARE: I remember reading that you forget most of the books you read, except for the ones that really stuck with you for whatever significant reason. Can you name some of the ones that have stayed with you, and why?

RUEFLE: When you ask me to name five books, they will be novels, because I think of poems as individual things floating in space or something—when I think of poetry I think of poems, not books. And you have asked me to name books: at this moment, the following five titles come to mind: Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Remembrance of Things Past, The Tale of Genji, The Rings of Saturn, and My Struggle. Why? Because they are all great books, books that are impossible to read without total immersion; I felt when I read them as if I had emigrated to another country, or lived in another time. What I have done is entered the mind of another, and found it fascinating, and wanted to stay there as long as I could. The list is long, but there’s not a poem on it. To get me to list poems, you would have to use a word other than “book.” Maybe that’s odd, but there it is.

 https://www.washingtonsquarereview.com/an-interview-with-mary-ruefle