Writer's Block: Best book ever!
Mar. 7th, 2010 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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There are any number of books I have read over and over again; The Stand, The Handmaids Tale, the Sandman series (I've decided they count), Ender's Game and Eat Cake to name a few. And I do find new meaning in them each time, learn new things - see things I haven't seen before or see them in a new light.
But the book I would choose if I was constrained to only one for the rest of my life (heaven forbid) is Persuasion by Jane Austen.
To say a book save my life, or my sanity would be overly melodramatic and overblown - and yet in a lot of ways I have felt like that about Persuasion since the moment I heard the story. I had never read it, or any Jane Austen novel (despite adoring the BBC Pride and Prejudice mini series) until September 11th, 2001.
I'd had a summer job with a state agency, carpooling in with four other interns we listen in horror on the radio during our commute and then huddled around computer screens and TV's in the office with the others until we were sent home - presumably to be with our families.
I had been living alone until my roommates returned for our final year of college, my parents were an hour away and at work besides - so I went home to nothing except the same 5 minutes of film over and over again and newscasters as struck dumb as the rest of us. Flipping through the channels frantically at one point looking for anything else I found the movie Persuasion just starting.
I watched it straight through and then I watched it again. I downloaded the book from Project Gutenberg and read it. Six hours of Jane Austen, of a love story about hope and faith and living through heartache, about finding acceptance and family. After that my parents got home and I got to talk to them, my roommates called, and my best friend who was going to Columbia made contact after twelve hours of silence.
When I got up the next day, I bought a copy of Persuasion - I read it a couple times a year whenever I need a reminder about strength and love and living with (and without) regret. I read it on September 11 in remembrance and to learn a lesson about forgiveness.
I do not doubt that others question my love of this story, of the many messages - always different depending on what I need at the moment - of the language but I don't care. I shant be persuaded otherwise.
There are any number of books I have read over and over again; The Stand, The Handmaids Tale, the Sandman series (I've decided they count), Ender's Game and Eat Cake to name a few. And I do find new meaning in them each time, learn new things - see things I haven't seen before or see them in a new light.
But the book I would choose if I was constrained to only one for the rest of my life (heaven forbid) is Persuasion by Jane Austen.
To say a book save my life, or my sanity would be overly melodramatic and overblown - and yet in a lot of ways I have felt like that about Persuasion since the moment I heard the story. I had never read it, or any Jane Austen novel (despite adoring the BBC Pride and Prejudice mini series) until September 11th, 2001.
I'd had a summer job with a state agency, carpooling in with four other interns we listen in horror on the radio during our commute and then huddled around computer screens and TV's in the office with the others until we were sent home - presumably to be with our families.
I had been living alone until my roommates returned for our final year of college, my parents were an hour away and at work besides - so I went home to nothing except the same 5 minutes of film over and over again and newscasters as struck dumb as the rest of us. Flipping through the channels frantically at one point looking for anything else I found the movie Persuasion just starting.
I watched it straight through and then I watched it again. I downloaded the book from Project Gutenberg and read it. Six hours of Jane Austen, of a love story about hope and faith and living through heartache, about finding acceptance and family. After that my parents got home and I got to talk to them, my roommates called, and my best friend who was going to Columbia made contact after twelve hours of silence.
When I got up the next day, I bought a copy of Persuasion - I read it a couple times a year whenever I need a reminder about strength and love and living with (and without) regret. I read it on September 11 in remembrance and to learn a lesson about forgiveness.
I do not doubt that others question my love of this story, of the many messages - always different depending on what I need at the moment - of the language but I don't care. I shant be persuaded otherwise.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 04:17 pm (UTC)