For the Ojai Quarterly, I have had the privilege of reporting on — and interviewing — notable writers in and around Ojai, California, for the last ten years or so, and so I took the opportunity recently in a column to look back at and remark on their wisdom and wonder.
Ojai and nearby towns are blessed with world-famous fiction writers, such as Jacqueline Winspear and T.C. Boyle, as well as lesser known but truly original thinkers, but I must say, the most trenchant comment from writers in the last ten years or so came I think from Jacqueline Winspear, the writer of the utterly unique and massive Maisie Dobbs series, on the underappreciated power of nostalgia.
“Nostalgia is big,” Winspear said, before a certain candidate ever ran for national office on a platform of a return to the past. “It is an underestimated emotion.”
Perhaps this is a sign of how little faith we have these days in the future: certainly, the Democrats’ slogans speaking of their characteristic optimism — “Happy Days Are Here Again,” from FDR’s time, or “Don’t Stop (Thinking about Tomorrow)” from Clinton’s time — seem fatuous today.
Kit Stolz 