On Saturday I'm a Litblogger

One of the nice things about working in a library is that you regularly run into old neglected books, perhaps long forgotten books, that you would never have discovered unless you are the type to peruse the dusty shelves of used-book stores and library stacks. But having discovered one, you have opened your life to a world of words and images, lives and stories. It comes to you as a gift, as from a friend you'd not heard from in some time, and you feel, above all, profoundly grateful.

Well, anyway, I think I've just made such a discovery. It's a little book called Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee, an autobiographical account of growing up in rural England around the time of the Great War. This is one of those nostalgic backward glances to an era now nearly forgotten, before life was completely technologized. The roof was of thatch, the bread was baked fresh each day, and water came from a pump in the scullery. Here's an example of Lee's magical way with words:

The scullery was a mine of all the minerals of living. Here I discovered water--a very different element from the green crawling scum that stank in the garden tub. You could pump it in pure gulps from the ground, you could swing on the pump handle and it came out sparkling like liquid sky. And it broke and ran and shone on the tiled floor, or quivered in a jug, or weighed your clothes with cold. You could drink it, draw with it, froth it with soap, swim beetles across it, or fly it in bubbles in the air. You could put your head in it, and open your eyes, and see the sides of the bucket buckle, and hear your caught breath roar, and work your mouth like a fish, and smell the lime from the ground. Substance of magic--which you could tear or wear, confine or scatter, or send down holes, but never burn or break or destroy.