by James H. "Jay" Walton
September 23, 1937 – April 8, 2012
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| Facebook Post ~ February 20 2024 |
As I have mentioned before, Jay Walton was one of my major professors at Notre Dame, as was Pete's dad, Joe Buttigieg. Out of curiosity, and respect for Walton's work, Margaret's Book had long been on my "to read" list. A few summers ago, it had worked its way to the top, so I went to amazon, found the paperback at Better World Books, and clicked on "buy now." Imagine my surprise when my "used like new" copy arrived a few days later and I opened the flyleaf to discover that it was the copy that Professor Walton had inscribed to Pete Buttigieg! Sadly, no date is given.
Perhaps this is not the most sensational of all the amazing flyleaf inscription stories floating around out there, but I think it is a pretty good one. And it will be even better if Pete becomes President one day! In one of his 2019 speeches, Pete said that an occupational hazard of being a young politician is that all the grown women want to pat him on the head. Awwwww! That's when it occurred to me that I probably did pat Pete on the head, when he was a toddler and came to the office with his dad every now and then. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of that! You will just have to believe me!
Even though the inscription is undated, it seems (knowing that Walton died in 2012, and I ordered the book in 2021) that this book found it's way to my library at least a decade after Walton presented it to Pete. I'm not sure if the condition of prior connection makes a coincidence greater or less, but I'm counting this one as a surprisingly appropriate literary coincidence. Better World Books is situated in Mishawaka, Indiana, right next door to South Bend, so it makes perfect sense that a book from Notre Dame would end up there. Still, I wonder if it was donated intentionally? Perhaps it was given away by accident when Prof. Buttigieg died (May 20, 1947 - January 27, 2019); maybe Pete doesn’t even know it’s gone; maybe he would like it back!
Now, about actually reading Margaret's Book, I'm sorry to confess that despite its brevity (150 pp), I struggled with it for a week or so. For one thing, aside from Margaret, the main female characters are named Estelle, Ellie, Elaine, Esther / Essie, Ella, Elizabeth. Can you believe?! I don't know if it's some kind of gimmick or subtle motif, but it meant that I was perpetually re-reading, trying to figure out which woman I was reading about because I could not keep them straight in my head!
said my friend Neil. Haha!
A few excerpts, including
this excellent readerly advice:
always keep a book close at hand,
no matter what you're doing . . .
37: ". . . he would lie for hours before the television set, unreading (though always with a book beside him) . . ."
don't expect your favorite authors
to be good people, just good writers . . .
72: "One doesn't write, he replied, to accomplish or accumulate or impress. That was for people who became the sum of their accomplishments or acquisitions, who had no authentic core of self. She must have forgotten their conversation about freedom. 'People like us,' he said (meaning intellectual or artistic people), 'think too much of what a whole life might add up to. We spend so much time among the great -- the great minds, great imaginations, great wills -- that we can't think of our life as worth anything unless we get some of that greatness for ourselves. But Charlotte Bronte and Thackeray; Dickens and even George Eliot; Henry James and Joyce; these were not good people, Margaret. If we knew them personally we wouldn't like them. Their personalities,' he said, reaching for something of Engelhardt's, about Conrad, 'Their personalities would leap at us like tigers!'"
76: "The prematurely warm day in March seemed all that he needed to complete his recovery. Southend's main street was as quiet, bare, and bright as on the best - remembered summer afternoons of his childhood."
Gramsci
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