1. When I was a senior in high school (age 17) I became ill with something or other. Some kind of flu, probably. It only lasted about 3 days, but during that time I was feverish, almost delirious. But somehow I managed to read a good chunk of Lord of the Rings — in 1970, when this book was having a major renaissance. Everything I read was hyper-real, and in my fever-dreams I was in Middle Earth. As a general rule I don’t recommend fever, but somehow it provided the perfect context for me to meet Tolkien.
2. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in a small village in northern Senegal, 1974 -76. I loved it, but I was the only English speaker for 100 miles in any direction, and until I developed proficiency in African languages I was pretty isolated. (Although I spoke French, and about 20% of the villagers had at least some command of that language.) ANYWAY, I experienced a great amount of forced downtime, and when I got my hands on a book I generally read it two or three times. There were a few books that I had brought from the States, others from the Peace Corps library in Dakar ( 2-days’ travel distant), and some came to me in the mail from friends and family. The most memorable of the latter category was Peter Benchly’s “JAWS”, which I had no idea was a blockbuster book and movie at the time. My Aunt Ree sent to me, God bless her. I loved that book. I didn’t then know, of course, that I would move to the island of Martha’s Vineyard, where the movie was filmed, in 1993. That movie is still part of the folklore of this place; I know dozens of people who were involved in making it, people come from all over the world every year just to visit the places that appear in the movie. But to me “Jaws" is the book first, movie second. Other titles included The Voice that is Great Within Us ( An anthology of 20th century American poetry) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/225558.The_Voice_That_is_Great_Within_Us <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/225558.The_Voice_That_is_Great_Within_Us> George Orwell, Burmese Days And Anthony Burgess’s “Malayan Trilogy” The Long Day Wanes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Malayan_Trilogy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Malayan_Trilogy> jrs > On Dec 29, 2016, at 12:10 AM, Udhay Shankar N <[email protected]> wrote: > > Any stories the list can share about similar things happening during > enforced downtime?
