valancy_jane (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
valancy_jane) wrote2011-01-20 10:29 pm
valancy_jane) wrote2011-01-20 10:29 pm
The Oddest Compliment
So yesterday I went to a new book club. I am awful at meeting new groups; fine in one-on-one situations, decent in organization, structure, but miserable in a party atmosphere. I was hot and flushed, nervous and twitchy; but for all that I had a good time.
Having been a Spanish-English double major, with a focus in modern Spanish literature and Victorian English, growing up in a house dominated by westerns, science fiction, and mystery, having developed a taste for classics and fantasy, then running a small magazine for six years, I have to my own great surprise become something of a decently knowledgeable person in terms of literature. But it was still tremendously strange that every time someone mentioned an author, I could say, "oh, yes, the incomparable X, the delightful Z, the scandalous Q." I felt the oddest sensation of being (ever so slightly) impressive for something I really know, something I care about. To be complimented for something you actually care about is a strange and marvelous thing.
And who doesn't love winning goldfish (the edible cracker kind) for knowing how old Hemingway was when he wrote The Old Man and the Sea?
Having been a Spanish-English double major, with a focus in modern Spanish literature and Victorian English, growing up in a house dominated by westerns, science fiction, and mystery, having developed a taste for classics and fantasy, then running a small magazine for six years, I have to my own great surprise become something of a decently knowledgeable person in terms of literature. But it was still tremendously strange that every time someone mentioned an author, I could say, "oh, yes, the incomparable X, the delightful Z, the scandalous Q." I felt the oddest sensation of being (ever so slightly) impressive for something I really know, something I care about. To be complimented for something you actually care about is a strange and marvelous thing.
And who doesn't love winning goldfish (the edible cracker kind) for knowing how old Hemingway was when he wrote The Old Man and the Sea?
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Thank you!
It was really so lovely. I'm sad we don't meet for a month!