The Tortoise and the Hare Reading Club RSS

Submitted by: @marissa_carmela i didn’t want to breeze through this, but maybe that’s just how it goes when you’re really rooting for someone to finally come up for air after swimming in murky waters.

As a freshman lawyer, I was tasked to research on some questions in an environmental case. A retired justice sat to preside over our brainstorming sessions, with the entire slate of newly minted lawyers recruited to help him. He was so old that he dozed off every time we began to recite our answers. He then would wake as we were about to conclude and deduce an opposite idea from what we’ve just posited. But we’d keep our silence, out of respect, and let the senior associate steer him to what we just said.

I can’t say I enjoyed every minute of it. I honestly felt it was too bourgeoisie for me. I didn’t have the patience to run to Google to translate every French word on the page. I didn’t have a special affinity for France and its ways. How much more could its food taste divinely better? I did not know the expat life in France right after the war. In many ways, I felt removed from the life portrayed in the book.

I decided not to write about everything I read. Well, this book brought my return.

For the first time, I didn’t rush through writing a review for this book. I knew my feelings for it were not fleeting. I could reread it 15 years hence.