I have packed to go to the countryside again. I pack light. I don't need much in the countryside. Books seem to take up the biggest space. I have three books that I finished to give to my mom, and four that I plan to read in the upcoming week.
For some strange occurrence the last three books were all written by old men. Two by an Estonian author Jaan Kaplinski, a poet and an essayist, who recently turned eighty. The first book spoke mostly about nature, the impact the humans have on the environment; the care we give and the destruction we have brought with too much cutting, trimming and managing. He travels back in time to his childhood and once in a while hops to the variety of wild places he has visited. He shows what the passing of time has done to the nature, his own garden and to himself. The second book explores the human nature both from philosophical and common sense perspective. He keeps returning to the idea that we don't need that much, and how about instead of striving continuously for more and better we focused of staying human, kind and caring. The author of the third book is a deceased Swedish author Stig Claesson. His book is a fiction, a story from a perspective of a retirement-aged author in a countryside, contemplating about ageing, love and death. At first glance it seems that both authors look back with some longing for what was in the past, and kind of resignation to the sad state of everything. At a closer look there is still hope in the books, and some acceptance of life as it is, and the idea that not much is needed to be happy. This reminds me of a quote I underlined in Thoreau's "Walden" - When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, - that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. I struggle with reading and understanding Thoreau, both his language and thoughts require close attention, and even then I think much is lost. I read slow, little bit at a time in between other things I read. Some big ideas come through clearly and I am surprised how the same ideas keep circling back and are valid centuries after he wrote his book.
I enjoyed reading the three books by the old men. Three in a row may have been too much in one week. I decided that for the next read I choose something from different genres. So the next books are a fantasy story, a collection of short stories by a young woman, a beautiful photo book about a biography of a ballerina, and young poet's letter to his mother who is illiterate. Plus I'll continue with Thoreau.
