This post is part of 805's “My Home Library” series that features writers and artists enjoying their home libraries during the pandemic and beyond.
Last Summer I developed a serious blood infection (which I wrote about for Filter). I ended up needing six weeks of IV antibiotics to recover. It was a terrifying experience. Because of the pandemic, I wasn't allowed to have any visitors. While I could and did occasionally Skype with various friends, I still felt incredibly lonely. Luckily, I was allowed to keep a few books in my room. I chose to bring the first four
books of Patricia Highsmith's Ripliad, as well as the first of the Cambridge Latin textbooks and my Oxford Latin-English dictionary.
You're probably wondering why I picked these books in particular. Well, I've been quite a fan of Highsmith ever since my best friend Sharon sent me a copy of The Price of Salt. As a queer woman and writer myself, I find it encouraging that Highsmith was able to find success as a writer in an era when men dominated the professional world. Also, her work is genuinely quite good. One can tell that she put a lot of careful thought into her characters and storylines. Highsmith is a master of suspense and mystery, arguably even better than Agatha Christie (though the latter's plotting is generally well thought-out, her prose often feels mechanical and lacks eloquence). I decided to bring the Ripley books because I find they make for a nice escape. After all, they primarily take place in beautiful European locales…lovely places full of fine wine and good food, the very opposite of the grim grey hotel I found myself in. Plus, the complicated situations of Highsmith's villainous protagonist served as a fine distraction. As always, I found myself quite caught up in Mr. Ripley's fiendish schemes!
As for the Latin book? Well, I've always been interested in languages. Over the past few years I've amassed quite a collection of bilingual dictionaries and language textbooks. I enjoy reading sentences from the latter aloud to practice pronouncing the words. Doing so gave me something concrete and sufficiently complicated to focus on, so I wouldn't spend all my time fretting about my health. Developing a potentially fatal blood infection was an utterly terrifying experience, especially for someone as young as me (I'm only 21). For the first few weeks of my hospitalization I feared that I wouldn't survive. Focusing on my studies kept me from panicking or breaking down.
M. L. Lanzillotta is a freelance writer from the Washington DC metro area. Her hobbies include painting, reading, studying languages, writing short stories, and collecting multilingual dictionaries.