To Read & To Write

Natalie Babbitt’s classic story, “Tuck Everlasting”, published in 1975, is a magical, powerful novella about a ten-year old girl named Winnie. She longs for something that is much more than her own bourgeois family, her own boring front yard, and her own lonesome self (whose only real friend at the beginning of the story is a frog). The day she decides to run away grants all her wishes. She spends a couple days living with an odd, mysterious, and gentle family – the Tucks - who tell her a big, unbelievable secret – a secret so important that it depends on their lives… Besides a fantastic, perfectly-crafted plot, Babbitt’s “Tuck Everlasting” has some of the most beautiful literary prose ever written. The dead heat of August, the stifling feeling of loneliness, the exuberance of love, the passing of time and its effect on the atmosphere, and, quite unique to this book – the idea of a lost rural place with lots and lots forest and sudden otherworldly and unexpected clearings, clearings ...

Many parts I know I love, many parts I know I don't yet understand. A lot has to do with the undoing of jargon (first to understand the jargon, then to throw it away), so as to make room for things *as is*, finally allowing for a plurality of meaning. This was translated from French and you can tell. It's part of its charm. A book to be read again and again and again. Other than that, I'm speechless.