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Aug
07
BTT: Calgon, Take Me Away!
2008 at 9pm Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
Are there any particular worlds in books where you’d like to live? Or where you certainly would NOT want to live? What about authors? If you were a character, who would you trust to write your life?
I love this question. Isn’t this why we read in the first place–to step out of our own lives, away from mundane responsibilities and everyday pressures, and into another world? Exploring other landscapes and alternate realities somehow allows me to be more present in my own, to think about things in a new way, to challenge myself and my ideas about the world, to grow, and then to return to life–to walking the dog and cooking dinner and watching TV with my husband–with a renewed appreciation. Though I love many genres of literature, this is why I love fiction.
If I could live in any fictional world, I think I’d choose the world J.R.R. Tolkien created in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but without all of the impending doom and constant anxiety. I’d love to have a cozy hobbit hole (lined with bookshelves, of course), and to sit in the garden each day enjoying my second breakfast and looking forward to elevensies. I do love food, so a hobbit’s life would fit me quite well (and the fact that I’m barely five feet tall might not hurt, either).
Though it’s not another world, I’d like to live on the Guernsey Island presented by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (click here for my review). Granted, I wouldn’t want to experience the German Occupation, but I’d love to meet those characters, attend the Society meetings, and rediscover the magic of books one more time.
I would definitely not want to live in the world of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which I’m currently reading, or in any other government-controlled or regulated society. The worlds in The Giver, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984 also come to mind, though Lois Lowry’s writing in The Giver is so wonderful that it is tempting, and imagine that I’d get a thrill out of the subversive community of people who refuse to let literature die in Fahrenheit 451.
Who would I trust to write my life story? I haven’t really thought about that before. If we’re talking about a biography, I think I’d choose Joan Didion for her ability to capture emotional climates and to reflect thoughtfully on the meaning of life’s smaller moments. If I were going to be a character in a work of fiction, John Irving would be my first choice. His characters are so realistically quirky, and he has this wonderful way of telling stories that are, at times, completely absurd but are told so well that they feel real and possible and entirely likely. Plus, I’d relish the chance to meet Owen Meany, lift him above my head, and just wait for the Sunday School teacher to yell at me.
Edited to add: I’ve been thinking about this all morning, and I think Bill Bryson would also be a good candidate to write me–he’d get the quirkiness and make me a little wittier than I am, which is always nice. Also, Toni Morrison. Sure, her characters go through hell, but her writing is so amazing that I’d be willing to let her put me through just about anything.