“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” – Jane Austen (English Novelist).
I went through a phase in the last couple of years where I had the urge to read some literary classics, some for the first time and one or two which were on the curriculum when I was at school. It was really interesting reading these books as an adult, by choice and for pleasure, rather than having to study them. I finally understood what a brilliant book ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ (1960) by Harper Lee is. With themes of rape and racial inequality, the character Atticus Finch serves as a moral hero. It’s hard not to fall in love with the wonderful characters, particularly the bright, precocious, tomboy Scout who loves to dress in overalls which offends her family and neighbours. Her father Atticus promotes feminist theories by defending her right to wear what she wants and doesn’t force her to act like a lady. Boo Radley is the family’s neighbourhood recluse who children find suspicious and make up stories about. In a bid to help Scout to see Boo Radley’s perspective, Atticus says to her “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it”. In 2006, British librarians ranked the book ahead of the Bible as one “every adult should read before they die“. (Guardian Unlimited).
“Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.” – C.S.Lewis (British writer, literary scholar, and Anglican lay theologian).
I also re-read ‘The Lord of the Flies’ by William Golding, published in 1954. For those who don’t know or weren’t ‘made to read’ this book at school, this is a haunting tale of a group of school boys who are the sole survivors of a plane crash and become stranded on a desert island. It is highly thought-provoking as it explores how living in a community with no fixed boundaries determines their ideas of community and leadership, their capacity for empathy and hope, and the capabilities of humans for good and evil, reflective of a dystopian society. The characters bring with them a range of themes – bullying, delusions of grandeur, leadership, savagery, nature, loss of innocence and morality. As you would expect from the time it was written it can feel quite dated but in many respects it’s also timeless. Since the release of this book there have been many drama series with similar dystopian themes, such as ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘Lost’, ‘The Wilds’, ‘Yellow Jackets’ and ‘The Society’, mainly around survival and human nature.
“I was always going to the bookcase for another sip of the divine specific.” – Virginia Woolf (considered to be one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors).
‘The Midwich Cuckoos’ by John Wyndham, published in 1957 is a relatively early science fiction novel. Adapted in several ways for film, television and radio (‘Village of the Damned’), it is about parasitic aliens who impregnate the women of one village producing children who have telepathic powers and a form of mind control. As you would expect from a book of the era it was written in, the writing is old-fashioned and a bit dated but you have to appreciate the book for the era it was written in. It was an easy read and I liked it. There was a recent modern day adaptation of the book on Sky TV starring Keeley Hawes and Max Beesley that I enjoyed too.
My favourite of the classics of English literature is ‘Jane Eyre’ (1847) by Charlotte Brontë. I must have only been aged nine or ten when I first read an old copy at my Nan’s house where we had lots of ‘sleepovers’ as children. As a child there is something strangely entrancing about orphans and adversity. I was also around the same age as the title character when I first read the book. Just writing about this book makes me want to read it again!
“I’m just going to write because I cannot help it.” – Charlotte Brontë (English novelist and poet; eldest of the three Brontë sisters).
As an adult, I have occasionally read books primarily aimed at children. I read the first four books in the ‘Harry Potter’ series and, whilst I found these fun and pleasant, I didn’t get swept away with the hype as it developed into a worldwide franchise. By the fourth book I was struggling a bit, hence why I didn’t read the sequels that followed after. I can’t deny how brilliantly they are all written though and believe that the recognition for them is very well deserved.
My children enjoyed books by Dick King Smith, Roald Dahl and Michael Morpurgo, all of which I read to them at various times. I absolutely loved ‘War Horse’ (1982) despite initially reading it out of curiosity. Although written for children, it contains a lot of adult themes and is potentially as appealing, if not more so, to ‘grown-ups’ than children.
‘Stone Cold’ (1993) by Robert Swindells is a young adult novel. The story follows a homeless kid (Link) and the maniacal mass murderer (Shelter) as they both inhabit the same London streets.
“Link has left home because of his vicious step dad and Shelter has set himself the mission of cleansing the streets of the vagrants that doss in the doorways.”
It is written from two narrators and gives an insight into life on the streets, containing many subliminal messages for the teenage mind, such as understanding that running away is dangerous. The way that homeless people are thought of in society and how they are treated is well portrayed, showing the hardships that people without homes and jobs have to face every day. It also helps to open your eyes to all the things in our lives that we take for granted.
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss (American children’s author and cartoonist).
Hoping for a Happy Ever After 