…not a singular experience

There’s a bit in The History Boys when the eccentric teacher Hector tells his students that, ‘the best moments in reading are when you come across something […] that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else.’ This statement, in the context of a play, performs itself: we hear it and we think, yes! I’ve had that experience! And now someone else is expressing it! Not just one person, many people: the playwright, the character, the actor. A multitude of people! It makes us feel part of this huge collective, humanity.

The example I always think of when considering Hector’s definition of ‘the best moments in reading’ is the line that gives this blog its name: ‘No book ever explained what to be young is’. I came across it in an unfathomable poem by Mina Loy, and was so surprised to read an expression of a feeling I’d ‘thought special, particular’ to me that I couldn’t just let it go. It was this need to preserve a moment of connection that gave birth to what I now call my ‘Hector notebook’. I suppose you could call it a commonplace book, filled with my ‘best moments in reading’.

I’ve already written about how curious I am about other people’s reading habits. Have you ever experienced the jolt of finding a thought you’d thought was yours alone ‘set down by someone else’? I’d love to hear about it.