But Call Me Betsy

Somehow during my middle school, high school and undergrad education, I missed reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (I can't even write that name without thinking about the movie Young Frankenstein where Gene Hackman keeps correcting the pronunciation of his name, "It's Frankenstein!").  In fact, the only book I can remember easing in high school was Silas Marner by George Eliot (a female writer, by the way). I wrote a paper about it or put on a play about it, or something, and I remember that the little girl's name was Eppie, and she had sausage curls to color of gold. One of my first brushes with symbolism--the gold of her curls mirroring Silas' own love of gold. But I can't recall any other books we were required to read. I read a lot anyway, so I got my Bronte and Austen from the public library or as gifts from my mom or grandma ( Little Women , The Girl of the Limberlost ). We probably read Mark Twain's Huck and Tom and we may have read some...

Almost finished reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed and it's very difficult to read, or not very difficult, just that I find myself skimming the text somewhat, partially because it's about her starving or needing water or her feet throbbing and her toenails falling off in her too-small boots or memories of her dead mother or her heroin-shooting days, interspersed with her getting lost on the trail or almost lost on the trial and nearly stepping on rattlesnakes three different times so far.  It's hard to relax when you're reading something where potential danger lurks at every turn in the path. And then there's the fact that her choice to take this solo trek on the Pacific Coast Trail is so far from anything I would ever consider doing that I find it hard to relate or sympathize with her difficulties. I don't even like to hike for an hour, let alone eight weeks in the wilderness with a pack on your back that weighs as much as you do. I've only been camping a han...