The Re-enchantment of the World
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My brother and I have reminisced about the role that our family's set of World Book encyclopedias played in our early imagination. My parents had bought a set early in their marriage, and it was a fixture at the top of our stairs for our entire childhood and youth. We'd pick out a volume here and there and browse, looking especially at the maps and cities. I remember thinking that "Buenos Aires, Argentina" was the most beautiful city name in the world. And Ed says that he was fascinated with the countries of Eastern Europe, which were under Soviet domination at the time and had a whiff of taboo and mystery to them. Looking through those volumes, the world seemed full of far-off adventure, just out of reach.
As I got into college, my idea of the world began to change. Air travel became commonplace. We were told that there was a McDonald's in every country on earth. Grad school professors emphasized (with disdain) that the US and Europe were cultural centers and the rest of the world was forced to hop along in step. Peers began to yawn at the mention of once revered sites like Stonehenge and Venice. More and more, we thought of the world as a vast Disneyland: Americanized, accessible, overtrod.
That all began to change when I went to Europe for the first time. We spent two weeks in Spain, and did not see anything approaching a McDonald's till we reached Madrid. I saw vast, open spaces, right in the heart of Europe. Then we went to England and saw Stonehenge, and not even the freezing February weather could dim my awe. And then we went to Italy and saw Venice, and I cringe at the readers who listed it as one of the most overrated sites in a recent chat. How jaded do you have to be to look at Venice and say, "Meh"?
My sense of re-enchantment has grown too because of the art magazines that Jay has starting taking in the last few years. There are photos of new art museums the world over, new hot spots, where life is churning with change and activity, places I'll likely never go: Dubai, Beijing, Macau. I like the realization that Americans are, after all, provincial. And that the world is wider than we'll ever be able to take in.
Macau at Night
The Guggenheim Bilbao
Proposed Opera House, Dubai
Petra, Jordan
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My brother and I have reminisced about the role that our family's set of World Book encyclopedias played in our early imagination. My parents had bought a set early in their marriage, and it was a fixture at the top of our stairs for our entire childhood and youth. We'd pick out a volume here and there and browse, looking especially at the maps and cities. I remember thinking that "Buenos Aires, Argentina" was the most beautiful city name in the world. And Ed says that he was fascinated with the countries of Eastern Europe, which were under Soviet domination at the time and had a whiff of taboo and mystery to them. Looking through those volumes, the world seemed full of far-off adventure, just out of reach.
As I got into college, my idea of the world began to change. Air travel became commonplace. We were told that there was a McDonald's in every country on earth. Grad school professors emphasized (with disdain) that the US and Europe were cultural centers and the rest of the world was forced to hop along in step. Peers began to yawn at the mention of once revered sites like Stonehenge and Venice. More and more, we thought of the world as a vast Disneyland: Americanized, accessible, overtrod.
That all began to change when I went to Europe for the first time. We spent two weeks in Spain, and did not see anything approaching a McDonald's till we reached Madrid. I saw vast, open spaces, right in the heart of Europe. Then we went to England and saw Stonehenge, and not even the freezing February weather could dim my awe. And then we went to Italy and saw Venice, and I cringe at the readers who listed it as one of the most overrated sites in a recent chat. How jaded do you have to be to look at Venice and say, "Meh"?
My sense of re-enchantment has grown too because of the art magazines that Jay has starting taking in the last few years. There are photos of new art museums the world over, new hot spots, where life is churning with change and activity, places I'll likely never go: Dubai, Beijing, Macau. I like the realization that Americans are, after all, provincial. And that the world is wider than we'll ever be able to take in.
Macau at Night
The Guggenheim Bilbao
Proposed Opera House, Dubai
Petra, Jordan
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posted by Anonymous at
3:51 PM
2 Comments:
Yes, the World Books! We had them too. Funny, but I was just reading about them in the book of the Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.
What I remember best from childhood is the illustrations and the double page spreads with dog and cat breeds in color. Also, the anatomical man on transparent pages so that you could carefully build him up from a skeleton to a man with guts, then one with muscle and nerves and finally a complete person. Can't remember if he was anatomically correct :>) There was always a lot of sibling competition for that volume! Susan E
BOOKS THAT IMPACTED MY YOUTHFUL WORLDVIEW: star wars: the empire strikes back: the mushy scenes.
shallow,
your friend
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