twenty-five years ago i read an obscure long book, Pilgrim's Way, by an obscure author, john buchan also lord tweedsmuir.

i had gone through a jfk phase in graduate school and somewhere along the way i had read that Pilgrim's Way was his favorite book so i picked up a copy with the thought that a favorite book could give insight into the one who favored it.

i have read a lot of books since and can remember them in the usual way, by a memorable scene like jean valjean's escape through the sewars of paris in les miserables or a particularly well-written passage, like hemingway's description of francis macomber's death.

but Pilgrim's Way stayed with me in a different way. I remembered nothing about it's content, none of its scenes, none of the writing. but for 25 years when someone asked me what my favorite book was Pilgrim's Way was it. it was memorable because it produced in me a "feeling", a lot like looking at a mark rothko painting does. it's not the descriptive quality of either of the works that hits you but the "feeling" produced.

no other book has ever effected me in the same way. it was embarrasing to be asked why it was my favorite. i never replied with the truth, a "feeling" being too swishy and precious a reason, and i really couldn't remember even a single chapter that i could weave a memorable half-truth from. saying "well, it was jfk's favorite" had the disagreeable and untrue ring of pretention, of a quest for reflected glory and besides jfk had been out of style for most of my adult life. and, if i was then asked the natural follow-up question, "well, why was it jfk's book" i couldn't answer that either in which case it could be reasonably concluded that i had never even read the damn book, adding a lack of cleverness to pretention in my developing image to the questioner. i don't know, maybe by that time i had already won the girl's heart and any answer i gave would have been satisfactory.

most vexingly i didn't have the book to answer these questions for myself. i believe i lent it to my girlfriend kathy and with several moves and life changes in the interim just never got it back and i couldn't just conveniently pick up a replacement when i found myself in a bookstore. it was written in 1940 and was long out of print.

finding myself in the midst of another life change, i went online and tracked down a copy.