relating_to_books epitome of incomprehensibility In tenth grade, my classmate Annick said that Anne_of_Green_Gables hadn't been her favourite book about orphaned or otherwise neglected children. She'd found better books with similar stories. Books in French, too. Secretly I felt angry...and jealous of her mastery of four languages in childhood (English, French, Haitian Creole and Spanish), but linguistic envy is off-topic. Anyway. Seventeen years later, perspective: those books, English or (gasp!) French, could very well be better. It's just that AoGG was wound up with my life and interests, and other books would be that way for Annick. I would say that "relating to books" is more emotional than simply appreciating how they're made, though that carries emotion too. Analysis and evaluation isn't a feeling-less process. But here I mean feeling a connection to some theme or plot or element of the book itself, something that inspires you, however insipid the repetition of that word has made it. Something that can make you go "I love that!" or just want to learn more. "Nerdy" interest isn't necessarily less heartfelt than I-love-it-ness, and the two can go around hand-in-hand like overly hyphenated lovers. It can mean relating to a character, i.e. finding shared characteristics, but not JUST that. That's not always how I relate to books, though I'm selfish enough to feel "recognized" somehow when I see a character a bit like me. Here's a smattering of examples, mostly from books I read when I was younger: -Anne Shirley being talkative, imaginative, and easily angered but willing to learn, even if it's hard -Saskia from The Saskiad making surreal/funny fantasy worlds and being bi with irrational crushes -Stephen Dedalus writing poems in his books, wanting to be aloof sometimes and popular other times, aaaand covering and uncovering his ears because he's intrigued by the way it sounds But, again, my draw to books often seems more oblique. Perhaps part of the story relates to something I only experienced from a distance or for a short time, like my twelve-year-old excitement over the book Prairie School. The book was set in one of the Dakotas, not in Canada, but I remembered traveling over the prairies in the VIA train. Then there were the themes of surviving hardship. Frontiers physical and mental. Bonding as a community, finding one's talents. Oh yes, and I became obsessed with appendicitis like I was with Antarctica before that, although I'm sure it wouldn't be fun in real life. It would involve a lot of pain and most likely vomiting, which would be embarrassing. I don't think I threw up at all between the ages of 10-23. (I've never read a sentence quite like that in a book, but that's what writing is for: observations about anomalous digestive behaviours.) 220131 ... e_o_i Sing, O muse, of new_books that are actually old ones: specifically, The_Saskiad by Brian Hall. I never owned a copy before. As a kid, I'd just borrowed it from Dorval Library. But I remember it being one of my favourite things when I was around 15, so I was surprise-pleased to find it in the basement of Valois United Church in what I just thought was a craft sale. If I remember right, it's creative and written well, but I think a lot of the draw was finding myself in the main character: guess who also had a mix of shy interior-world-iness and goofiness? Plus, I think Saskia was the first bi character (heavily implied, anyway) I remember reading about. 220328 ... e_o_i Of course, she also came from a radically different upbringing. Different advantages and disadvantages, different adventures. And all that was a draw too. I don't think I'll make a blathe of The_Saskiad, not having time to reread it (but if someone knows the book, please feel free!). Still, I feel compelled to list the Odyssey_inspired books that I've read, because why_not? 220328 ... e_o_i Okay, I just did. I see the best way to get myself to do things is to say I won't do them. 220329 what's it to you? who go blather from