One of my favorite modern writers – the gorgeous and talented Jhumpa Lahiri – explores the joys of reading in her NYTIMES column:
“When I am experiencing a complex story or novel, the broader planes, and also details, tend to fall away. Rereading them, certain sentences are what greet me as familiars. You have visited before, they say when I recognize them. We encounter books at different times in life, often appreciating them, apprehending them, in different ways. But their language is constant. The best sentences orient us, like stars in the sky, like landmarks on a trail.”
For anyone who has lived for an extended period of time in multiple countries, Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth is a great read. She is endowed with the ability to capture in words the feeling of being somewhat untethered - fitting in neither here nor there.
On a somewhat related topic, this NYTIMES article explores the improved brain performance of bilinguals: