Ghost PagesReflections on "Encyclopedia of an Ordinary LifeI've been thinking about narrative ghosts a lot lately. Characters who never appear in the flesh but nevertheless haunt the story like a ghost. Many of these characters are literally dead. The antagonist's "wayward" brother, the protagonist's mother with a complicated past, the lost Lenore. Amy Krouse Rosenthal is not a character. She was a real person with real thoughts and feelings and a tangible impact on the world. And yet she haunts this book. She haunts this book. This wonderful, sweet, quirky book. There is a different draft of this reflection. One from before I knew anything about Amy Krouse Rosenthal, before I knew she passed away, frantically written upon the discovery that the URL for this book had lapsed. This happens to many websites, even today. The server costs too much, code starts to break, the website gets hacked. These things happen and there is no moral judgement behind them. And yet I feel terrible that I wrote such a thing. Because reading these pages, the way she liked to bring a little joy to the lives of the people around her, knowing what I know now about how she interacted with her audience, I don't think she would have ever let it lapse. Not without telling her audience they could contact her on Twitter or perhaps Facebook. And this is a sense I not only get through being told but through Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. In the deeply personal prose. In the way Rosenthal, no, Amy wants you to know her. Her insights, her quirks, her life. She wanted me to know her and quite frankly, I wish I really had.
copyright Sam Garcia 2024 |