books that awoke my spirit

carrying on the Emerson-challenge, my blog-friend Kati and i
set ourselves a few challenges along the way...

We did one about books.

“Books are the best of things, well used. What is the right use? What is the one end, which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

As an - eternally budding - writer, i place a lot of importance in some books that i've read during my life so far. I'm not a good reader, i must admit, finding it quite hard to stick with stories, losing track very easily {i blame dyslexia}, and i've found it wonderful that a lot of the Classics have been made into films or tv series {all kneel & praise the BBC drama department!!}... Recently the screen version of Great Expectations was shown, and now i finally got what the whole Miss Havisham thing was all about... Also the newly made, modernised Sherlock Holmes version - but for entirely different reasons - pleased me no end...

A few novels have opened my eyes, mainly during teenage, and a few as a maturing mother, and have been crucial in lots of different ways: in the way i look at myself, how other people view the world, and the way i use English -which is not my first language, but has become an incredibly important way of expressing myself, and defining who i am... Here's a few stories {in either book- or screen form} that made a difference in my life:

* brideshead revisited - evelyn waugh
Originally brought to my attention as a series, and never read as a novel (way too long), it opened my eyes to a lot of things: in Sebastian i recognised the oppressed, over-praised (as a child, especially by his nanny), under-supported side of myself, and loved the lavish language used - i thought it was beautiful, so florid and rich, something i so needed in the austere home i lived in, where copiousness was frowned upon heavily by my mother. I felt i found a world that i needed to be in, and the seed was planted to leave Holland a.s.a.p...

* maurice - e.m. forster
Another one of recognition and discovery, the feelings of passionate love for someone when it wasn't 'the done thing', i also recognised myself in the main character of this book - the gay young man, who is trying to find a way in which he can deal with his true identity, knowing he will lose the support and 'love' of his family and the people around him. Somehow this is far more natural for me than any woman-based stories i've come across... However well written...

* it could happen to you - isla dewar
which then is pretty contrary to find a feisty Scottish woman in my list... When the kids were growing up, i discovered - in the local library, here in Holland, of all places - a stack of novels by aforementioned lady... I loved them, and i also felt inspired by the way she wrote... Granted, there was no Waugh-style floweriness, or Forster's almost distant way of looking at the human condition - these books had feeling... And back then, that was what i needed more than literary distance... I felt somehow a slight shred of confidence to put pen to paper and construct my own stories... Although i still compare myself to the way the Great Writers wrote and feel that i fail miserably...
Also, the landscapes she described - barren Scottish coastlines, craggy beaches - appealed (and still do) massively to me...

* stuff by margaret forster {no relation}
more distant than Dewar's writings, less emotive, very beautiful... Looked at life in Northern England, the harshness of it, at the beginning of last century...

* winnie-the-pooh - a.a. milne
pre-disney, of course... Crammed full with nuggets of wisdom and beauty...
 'some people care too much... i think it's called love...'