The Right Book At The Right Time

Being an English teacher, I'm predisposed to be a book nerd. (Vice versa may also apply) But I think even occasional readers will agree that every once in a while, usually through sheer dumb luck, or through the recommendation of a friend, you find yourself with a book that registers so completely with something you're experiencing that you just sit back and say, "Yeah."

Before I left for Puerto Rico, my friend Ally gave me the book All Roads Lead to Austen by Amy Elizabeth Smith and the instructions to begin reading it on the airplane. It's a nonfiction book about an English professor from California who goes on a year-long expedition in Latin America to set up Jane Austen reading groups (reading the Spanish versions) with the locals. Smith (the author) experiences Guatemala, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay, and Argentina and reads each of her three selected novels twice to get different perspectives from different countries. All the while, Smith is trying to answer the question "Are Jane Austen's novels applicable everywhere, even in other languages?"

The frustrations, curiosity, and excitement presented by traveling and grappling with new everything are perfectly illustrated in this book. Struggling with Spanish, meeting new people, seeing new places, learning a new culture, teaching, and finding solace in literature are in the forefront for Smith--and for me at the moment. In her book, Smith argues that you cannot separate people from place; "We don't know a place until we know the people, and that takes time, patience, and serious reading skills." In each country she visited, Smith made a point to read local literature. With each novel read, she was able to gain a deeper understanding of the culture in which she currently found herself--and the jokes too!

The beauty of literature is how universally it connects people and cultures all around the world, whilst still managing to impart wisdom specific to locations, populations, or situations. So why didn't reading occur to me before? Smith's book made me start thinking that I have been trying to get to know a place, instead of a people. Sure, I know a little bit of history, but I don't know local literature that has colored the way people see things. It's a different way of looking at a place, a different kind of understanding. I may be here to teach literature, but I can learn it here too.

Smith says it best when she writes, "Immersion in a new culture can inspire huge changes, but so can reading. Any bookworm knows how a truly powerful book can motivate us toward major change." Now, put the two together and you have major changes in perspective, in appreciation, and in action.

And sometimes all it takes to create change is a book given to you by a friend, at exactly the right time, that makes you sit back and say, "Yeah."