“I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.”
-C.S. Lewis
“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” -Lemony Snicket
Oh my goodness. I"m reading The Secret History right now-it is so sobering and chilling and fascinating and deliciously ironic; the writing blows my mind-just gorgeous and rich and atmospheric. I don’t really like any of the characters-and for a book to be so good without likable characters is amazing. Inspiring. I am so glad I gave myself this book challenge of reading through the BBC Top 100 Novels. It’s given me a goal-a reachable, tangible goal. It’s good to feel like I’m accomplishing something, and especially something in my “field,” something that has always made me feel like me. Reading has been a constant in my life. Stories and characters and emotions and atmosphere and words and turns of phrase find their way into my bloodstream, become part of my make-up. I find myself reading too fast, always too fast, gobbling up words and chapters like someone who hasn’t eaten in days.
I can’t read slowly, and I can’t stop reading at the end of the chapter. It always has to be somewhere in the middle of a chapter. Chapters always end on too tantalizing of notes, and I just have to keep going. After college, sans syllabuses, lists of books that professors picked out, and due dates for essays, I found myself adrift in my reading. I didn’t know what to read anymore-even though I finally had the time to read whatever I wanted to! But what did I want to read? It started with one of those old Facebook quizzes-“How Many of These Top 100 Novels Have You Read? BBC estimates the average adult has read only 6!” or something like that. Well, it was embarrassing how many I had not read, even though I’d just got done working for a major in literature. Oops. I filed it all in the back of my mind. A few years later, feeling dry and uninspired both in reading and in my own writing, I remembered that list and looked it up. I printed it off and have been steadily working on capturing these titles and marking them off in orange highlighter.
Oh my goodness. I’d never read The Great Gatsby or Of Mice and Men. I hadn’t read The Remains of the Day, only seen the movie. I’d never read any George Elliot, and Middlemarch turned out to be amazing. I couldn’t believe I’d never read Vanity Fair, and it’s now one of my favorite novels ever. Animal Farm and 1984 will always haunt me. I devoured The Little Prince and tried not to read it too fast. I read Possession and was delightfully devastated by the language, the prose, the idea of possession in so many different forms. I also read Atonement and didn’t care for it, even though the writing was gorgeous. I’ve also taken a few breaks from conquering my list-I’ve reread quite a few Mary Stewart novels-which always make me want to travel and maybe take up smoking. Oh, and rereading dear Agatha Christie and Father Brown. I read Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, fun and fast modern reads.
But my heart will forever belong to the misty moors, the rambling houses, the wind-strewn trees of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, the game’s afootness of Sherlock Holmes, the adventures and reality of Narnia, the journeys of Tolkein’s small heroes, the witty manners and romances of Jane Austen, the fierce delight and terror of The Man who Was Thursday, the droll and impeccable Lord Peter Whimsey.
The thing about novels, the reason why I love fiction, is it breaks one’s heart and fixes it all in one swoop. They say the man who’s read books has lived more lives than the man who doesn’t, and this is true. Not only have I lived more lives, but I’ve been privy to a range of human emotion and human reasoning and human experience-books shed light on my own mixed-up and dusty feelings and circumstances. Like with best friends, we can read a good book and say, ah, you too? I am not alone. I am not from another planet-I belong here. In this short and fleeting mist of a life, novels are anchors to the ground, and mirrors to our souls.
I see myself in Rochester-desiring and deceitful, mad with love and lust; I see myself in Jane Eyre, bound to desires but even more to a personal moral code. I see myself in Elizabeth Bennett-an observer of the absurdities of my society but wrapped up in my own perspective entirely too much. I see myself in John Watson, a loyal friend but not always sure what‘s really going on. I see myself in both Eleanor and Marianne-full of passions and fervor, yet held back by conventions and personal hang-ups. I see myself in Dorothea Brooks, unrealistically idealistic and always seeing the best in everyone until it’s too late, putting the undeserving on pedestals. I see myself in Jude the Obscure, feeling the call to be someone, be something, do something important, but always fighting resistance and apathy and things outside my control. I see myself in Dr. Frankenstein-being overwhelmed with feelings of what have I done?
I see myself in Jay Gatsby, working so hard to convince the world and myself that I am something other than what I truly am. I see myself in Eowyn, the princess with so much to give, who was told to stay at home and wait. I read the mysteries, the suspense novels, the detective novels and wonder if I would have had what it takes to solve a mystery, outsmart the bad guys, keep a cool head in dire circumstances-in short, do I have what it takes to be a true heroine? Novels let us dream, dream in infinite possibilities. And when a well-turned phrase or idea rings true, ah, well, that is why we read. The satisfaction of a well-written sentence or paragraph (if it’s Charles Dickens) is enough to make one sigh with pleasure, or even in recognition that another person, another writer, saw something the way I do, too. So much to read and reread and absorb and enjoy. Glorious bliss of too many books to read.
What books have changed you? What are you reading these days?
