Perils of the Ordinary

So. Sometimes I'm seduced into reading a book because of someone else's enthusiasm. I've been  reading a lot of Penny Kittle just lately and she just raved about a book called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. It's an autobiography. I hate autobiography. Generally speaking, there's nothing more tedious than someone wittering on about their own navels. (I include my own witterings about my own navel, incidentally) Yet, Kittle wrote so passionately and so convincingly about this particular autobiography that, I not only decided to read it, I had to track a copy down to buy online in order to do so.

My feelings on this book are mixed. On the one hand, Rosenthal is sentimental in a way that I find irritating. It seems like she can find meaning in the crumpled remains in an old newspaper. She feels a connection between things that have nothing to do with each other. In fact, I'm a little jealous of her ability to find awe at the utterly ordinary. An ordinary life is ordinary, so much of it runs the risk of being tedious. Rosenthal finds wonder in the ordinary and that's not a bad thing. Just really, really irritating.

On the other hand,  the thing Kittle was so enamored of was the structure. Rosenthal has written her autobiography in form of a collection of encyclopedia entries. Everything is included, the profound ("meaning," "statement," "rejection," & "profound") as well as the minutia ("closet," "stupid slow driver," & "weather, asking about the".) All of it's deeply personal, if not deeply important. Even so, some of it resonated with me on a deep level.

I too find my conversation becoming overly verbose when I'm uncomfortable, I too find pictures in the random patterning of my shower tiles, and I too look for the super-rich folded over potato chips in the bag to savor first. They are simple things, but they make me feel connected to this woman who I have nothing substantial in common with.

I'm still not sure what I ultimately think about this book. It may take me months, or even years, to decide, which is, perhaps, a recommendation it its favor.