I’d say it’s what separates us, not from the beasts, but the bestial. Creating the future, renewing a learned past - these are reasons to strive. Writing for and with love, taking and framing an image, stretching new melodic skins onto old skeletons of song… it’s how we manage to fly. It’s how we stay you and me, not us and them.
Unlike Osk, who seemed to establish his own tactical task force wherever we lived, scooping up neighbourhood feline troublemakers as sidekicks (including the memorable ginger behemoth Watson, with whom he used to scope the street from the safety of the shed roof), Jelly has the intelligence gathering skills of a sponge cake.
Anyway, somewhere in between my 'and then you should've done this' and 'why didn't you say x and y, rather than z', and 'for the love of monkeys and the general public's eyesight, you didn't honestly wear that heinous shirt did you', something he was saying about the dating extravaganza we were picking to pieces finally penetrated my cloud of self-congratulatory cumulo-waffle.
"Most people don't talk about how dates are progressing as a tender process, do they?" he asked.
"What?"
"She said I was 'part way through the tender process' and that she was judging me on my submission. I'd like to think there was irony involved, and I think at the time I may have given an admittedly weak "haha, yesssss, quite". Looking back, I'd have to conclude, computer says no on the presence of Fabulon or other aids to achieving crisply pressed linen."
Despite looking really, really fabbo in breeches, Lizzy realises that Darcy is in fact very arsey and isn't likely to change his spots anytime soon. She decides marriage would be a trap and a half and instead scandalises Longbourn by going on the stage and becoming the best known actress of her time. Mrs Bennet loses the plot entirely and simultaneously the power of speech (yay). Darcy marries Caroline Bingley and is miserable but his family is happy so bad luck.
Jane and Bingley can still get married because they're both drips.
There is a reason why moveable type was invented. It was to stop people gazing at their own navels wondering if they were going to go to hell for thinking naughty thoughts about Lucy the dairy maid in the next village, and start them gazing at the inside of their craniums, and thinking about whether there was life outside their planet, and if the simplest explanation was probably the correct one, or whether something was rotten in the State of Denmark. Or perhaps if a rose by any other name would smell quite as sweet.
Granted, there's a hell of a lot still written about naughty thoughts and Lucy the dairy maid, but at least some of it is written in an intelligent way, and we can choose to read about Lucy the cow whose DNA is being used to find a cure for cancer if we feel like it.
“When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it - or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don't suppose many people try to do it.” - Dodie Smith, I Capture The Castle
Today is World Book Day, and here is where I show my everlasting Geek Girl status by saying, in an annoyingly loud voice,
"Huzzah!!"
Because, more than anything else in the world, excepting perhaps the Man Who Vaguely Resembles David Tennant...
I love books.
Books rock. Like a rocky thing.
The quote from I Capture The Castle (which, not altogether surprisingly, is one of my all time 'can read again and again, never get tired of it, go to when I can't sleeps' favourites) sums up perfectly what books mean to me.
When I read them, I am a part of them, and they are a part of me.
Books are an escape and a fantasy. They are a way of living out our wildest dreams without leaving the comfort of our bed on a cold yucky winter morning. They're a way to drown out the snores and snarkles of the very large gentleman next to us on the long flight from X to Y. They are, when we are younger, often a way to make the best of what can be a scary place - the playground - when we don't quite fit in.
They make us laugh and cry. They make us look nervously over our shoulders to see if the bad man has managed to jump out of the pages somehow (I don't know about you, but this has not been restricted to my childhood. Hannibal Lecter's creator, Thomas Harris, and of course the ScareMeister Stephen King, have a LOT to answer for).
We cheer for the good guys. We take the second star to the right, and play Pooh Sticks with Christopher Robin. We know what Katy Did (or Didn't?). We watch the Little Women become bigger - with that tearful, tragic exception - and we go through the Wardrobe with Lucy, Peter, Edmund and Susan.
We return with the King and Samwell Gamgee. We listen to Atticus defend Tom with every fibre of his being, while Scout, Dill and Jem play at being Boo Radley. And we all know that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Especially if he looks like Darcy.
We do these things time and time again. Why? Because books are magic. Even if they aren't inherently about boy wizards.
I gobble up books like they are my last meal as a condemned prisoner - it has been this way for me since I first started chewing on the corner of what was probably a very valuable piece of literary real estate. I become the protagonist of every book I read. I was Jo getting her hair cut off to raise money to get Marmee to March and I certainly resembled Pippi Longstocking far more than I would care to remember. I was definitely naughty Katy before she became good Katy, although these days I now understand more about her 'house of pain' than I ever would have dreamed. Jane Eyre's look of patient forebearing had nothing on me when I was in a snit. And as for The Wind In The Willows...
Definitely Ratty, with his dreams of the Wide, Wide World.
Although I completely get Toad's thing for motorcars.
The wonderful thing is, books are forgiving. They don't care whether or not you read weighty great classics on a daily basis. They just want to be read. The Collected Works of Pliny the Elder aren't going anywhere; if what floats your boat is vampires and werewolves and shifters (oh my!) then who cares? Pliny probably would have quite enjoyed them too, the old bugger. The point is to feed your imagination. George R R Martin has done a wonderful thing with Game of Thrones; he has brought reading not to a new generation of children, but to a new adult audience, and love him or hate him, as a reader you have to respect him.
I love books. It's that simple, and that complicated. And one day they will probably bankrupt me.
But by that stage, I will most likely be able to build a house out of them, I will have so many -
So at least David T and I will have somewhere to live.
““...looking at the million book spines, I can imagine a million alternate endings. It turned out the butler did it all, or I ended up marrying Mr. Darcy, or we went and watched a girl ride the merry-go-round in Central Park, or we beat on against the current in our little boats, or Atticus Finch was there when we woke up in the morning.””
— Rebecca Makkai, The Borrower
I was reading a new book the other night and really enjoying it - OK, it was fairly trashy, but who cares? It was fun, it didn't involve an awful of of brain power and it was slightly naughty. If I'd had some chocolate and a glass of wine, I would have been in hog's heaven. As it was, I had to settle for just the glass of wine, but beggars can't be tipsy choosers.
I was zooming through the pages (or rather zooming through the iPad flips) when I got to the end.
And it SUCKED.
It was a complete cop-out. The iPad went thump on the sofa - if it had been a real book it would have possibly gone sailing off the balcony and started a brief new life as a seagull yacht. The ending ruined the entire book for me, and put me in a stinky mood for at least three hours (well, a stinkier mood... no chocolate, remember?)
It made me think though about all of the iconic novels I had read. Ernest Hemingway wrote 47 different endings to A Farewell To Arms. Forty. Seven. What if Catherine hadn't carked it? And then there's Gone With The Wind - what if Rhett had given a damn?
I know that there are a lot of 'variation' books out and about - especially in Jane Austen land - but they usually are a 'now on with our story' or have the same ending, just a different storyline to get there. So being me, I have decided to give five classic capers my own 'what if' and see whether I have hits on my hands - or just get hit.
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows:
Harry dies. Properly. Snape doesn't - we all know he got a pretty raw deal the whole way through and he needs a break. Hermione decides Ron is far too ginger for her and runs off with Malfoy, because let's face it, he's pretty damn hot and she had a secret thing for bad boys. They found an evil magic empire which is so successful it turns the British economy around, the Muggle Royal Family gets evicted and King Mal and Queen H are installed to wild applause.
Pride And Prejudice:
Despite looking really, really fabbo in breeches, Lizzy realises that Darcy is in fact very arsey and isn't likely to change his spots anytime soon. She decides marriage would be a trap and a half and instead scandalises Longbourn by going on the stage and becoming the best known actress of her time. Mrs Bennet loses the plot entirely and simultaneously the power of speech (yay). Darcy marries Caroline Bingley and is miserable but his family is happy so bad luck.
Jane and Bingley can still get married because they're both drips.
The Great Gatsby:
Jay realises what a complete git he has been by asking Daisy to say she had never loved Tom. They hoof it to Paris with Pally in tow. Tom realises Daisy was in fact incredibly boring, decides discretion is the better part of valour, and marries Jordan. She ends up murdering him with a golf club for messing around with a variety of Myrtles. Nick makes his fortune on the stock exchange and never writes another word, which is a shame but hey - he's rich and happy. He'll settle.
Gone With The Wind:
Melly doesn't cark it, and she and Ashley have lots of incredibly geeky kids, one of whom is Bill Gates' great-great-great-grandfather. Scarlett becomes a nun. Rhett becomes President. Scarlett re-thinks the convent because she likes the idea of being Mrs President. Monica Lewinsky beats her to it. Oh wait... that's a different work of fiction.
To Kill A Mockingbird:
Forget it. I'm not touching this one.
OK, so it was only four... but come on. Messing with Atticus, Jem, Dill and Scout? I'd be assassinated.
I'm thinking there are legs on a couple of these though. Maybe I have a new calling? Is there a job title called 'Wrecking Great Books Which Should Never, Ever Be Touched by Anyone, But Constantly Are?'
I am sure I can fit that on my business card somehow. I'm off...
““I also read about Heathcliff’s unexpected three-year career in Hollywood under the name Buck Stallion and his eventual return to the pages of Wuthering Heights.” ”
— Jasper Fforde, Lost In A Good Book
Being in a book.
I have been thinking about this subject for years, I think since I first started to truly comprehend the magic of written words on a page.
In other words (cough - sorry, couldn't help it), at a very tender age indeed, I was wanting to jump between the covers of The Velveteen Rabbit and make sure that goddamned Nursery Fairy made my bunny real. By holding her to ransom if necessary, or breaking her wand.
Similarly, as my reading tastes matured, I was certain, absolutely certain, that if Anne Shirley met me, we would instantly become besties and she would forget all about boring Diana, and I would of course then get to meet Gilbert Blythe.
Sigh.
I do have a point here, I'm just busy between the pages. Which I suppose is my point.
If you could jump between the covers - of a book, not a bed (rude) - which one would it be?
And I mean as yourself, not as a character. Much as I love playing Sherlock Holmes (the dreadful old misogynist), I would love to go in and be myself within The Hound of the Baskervilles, or A Study In Scarlet, and find a way of helping Holmes and Watson to the truth. Or maybe being an even bigger villain than Moriarty - depending on my mood at the time.
Which characters would you love to meet on a real life basis?
Some would be too depressing for words. Much as I love Rochester, I think that all that brow beating and gloom and doom might be a bit much on a daily basis. Plus there's the mad wife, and the corsets... meh. All a bit much.
Jane Austen on the other hand... I can imagine being friends with Lizzie Bennet. I could cheerfully smack Arsey Darcy around the head, but I do like a pair of pantaloons... and riding boots. Phwoar. Book of choice however would have to be Persuasion, because I actively, and actually, love the characters in it. I can envisage conversations with Anne Elliot, and Captain Wentworth. Although I am not sure I would last long simply not doing anything other than 'visiting' all day.
I would probably end up falling off a sea wall to stave off boredom.
I was obssessed with Game of Thrones when the books came out - I read them cover to cover and sequentially. Would I like to live within them? Realistically... hell no. It would be like living at the Fall of Rome, or under the Borgias. One would never relax. Plus there's the need to speaketh wryly at all times... no... miss that one. In theory, love it. In practice, no thank ye.
I dream about books. I worship them. The characters contained within my favourite books' covers are a part of my heart. They beat inside me. I never want this to not be the case.
However... life is not a novel. It may feel like a trashy paperback at times, or even War and Peace, but it ain't.
It's non-fiction. It is absolutely a book, but it is writing itself, and we need to live it without regrets and without fear, and with love.
It may not be the approach favoured by the authors we admire most, but who is editing this thing anyway? We are.
I am.
Admittedly, given the opportunity, I would hop inside To Kill A Mockingbird and never let Atticus Finch go... but then again, I could get stuck in 1984 with Big Brother, and then where would I be?
Write your own story.
Oh, and if you get the chance - help me encourage the Nursery Fairy.
““I’ll bet this, though: in a hundred years, people will be writing a lot more dissertations on Harry Potter than on John Updike. Look, Charles Dickens wrote popular fiction; so did Shakespeare - until he wrote his sonnets, desperate to show the literati of his day that he was a real artist. The core of the problem is how we want to define “literature”. The Latin root simply means “letters”. Those letters are either delivered—they connect with an audience—or they don’t.””
— Brent Weeks
I love books. Looooooooooove them. I don't just love reading them; I love their physical smell, feel and touch. Admittedly most of my reading tends to be done on an iPad now, but if you think this means I don't purchase the hard copies of the books as well - think again.
What the iThingy does allow me to do is indulge my very guilty pleasure. And it is a pleasure. And it makes me feel a little bit guilty, much like eating an Elegant Rabbit before Easter makes you feel guilty (don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about fellow chocoholics).
It lets me buy really, really trashy books without paying a fortune for them. Because I have to tell you, the thought of paying $30.00 for 'Penelope (A Madcap Regency Romance)' makes me feel a little bit as though I've eaten not just an Elegant Rabbit, but said bunny and the whole of Beatrix Potter's menagerie in cacao-bean covered form.
Rather ill.
Why? Because, dear reader, it is predictable, fluffy, turn brain off at the door baloney that means one thing;
I don't have to think.
I can simply let the words wash over me and know that in the end the slightly ditsy/clumsy/plain/poor yet intelligent and feisty heroine will end up with the stern/remote/emotionally damaged yet still ridiculously handsome and rich (and titled) hero. The End. And if I fall sleeps and miss a chapter or two because my iDooby flicks through, I won't even notice.
Yay.
This means two things.
One, I give my brain a nice warm bubble bath of froth and silliness - a proper break from concentrating on the real world on a regular basis. And two, when I do read something worthwhile and incredibly well-written and challenging, I appreciate it all the more. For example - even though at the moment I think the British public has a fatwa out on her for maligning the Duchess of Cambridge (context people) - Hillary Mantel's Bring Up The Bodies was unputdownable. Just like Wolf Hall.
So give your grey matter a bit of a break, and indulge in some idiocy with your reading material. There is nothing wrong with some heaving bosoms and tight britchery - but for heaven's sake, don't stay in that world full time.
You'll get a toothache in the brain.
And may well start saying 'la, Sir' and smacking people with a fan when they tell you that you look nice...
