How I Cope: NOVELS

My roommate Kim (kimknowsbest.blogspot.com) and I were talking last night about the crazy things we do as finals week approaches. She has been going into an organizational and cleaning frenzy - the bathroom is SPOTless! And the rest of the apartment is in a constant state of fluctuation, but somehow it just FITS for finals week. Me, I've been DEVOURING novels and playing Legend of Zelda. Twilight Princess, for those interested...being third in line after Jared and Lindsay, and not having a tolerance for endless hours of gaming, I never actually finished it even though it came out 5 years ago. I hope to rectify THAT soon...before I play / watch Lindsay play the new Zelda game!!!

But more important is the novel part. I've been tearing through them! Evelina by Fanny Burney (I chose that because it was one of Jane Austen's favorite novels), Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell (why, oh why did she have to die before completing the final chapter!), Jo's Boy's by Louisa May Alcott (the only one of the Little Women books I never finished reading in childhood and now have...poor Dan!), Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, and now Anne of Windy Poplars (soon to be followed by Anne's House of Dreams, Anne of Ingleside, Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside, then Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter and A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett). All within the past two weeks (excepting, obviously, the ones I haven't read yet). Anybody sense a thematic link in all these books?

At first, all this reading was definitely a method of escapism. Now generally, I am not a fan of novels/video games as a means of escaping life. There's a difference, for me, between using fiction to escape and using fiction as a medium through which to broaden your mind/emotions/imagination and gain insight. The former, though enjoyable, is a little more hollow and deadened, like a collapsed drum (the stretched kind, not the metal kind). The latter is open and freeing. Believe it or not, in moderation, playing Zelda often acts as the latter for me...it inspires me to write and puts me in a relaxed and serene place. As Anne (of Green Gables, etc) would say, I find a great deal of "scope for the imagination" in it.

But anyway, somewhere between Jo's Boys and Anne of Green Gables I switched from escapism mode to interactive mode. Louisa May Alcott (with the exception of A Long Fatal Love Chase, lol) and L. M. Montgomery each have a beautiful way of depicting and inspiring imaginative characters, and tucking into their stories the homely little truths that may contradict over-romantic illusions, but they sit inside your soul ever so much more nicely.

And I remembered...I LOVE Anne! UNlike Little Women, I haven't reread the Anne books since childhood. Anne Shirley is super-imaginative, loves to write, gets carried off in flights of fancy, loves to talk, has extreme emotional highs and lows, goes off on wild tangents...sound like anyone we know?

(pssst....it's me! And I'm sure many of you as well :D)

So basically, reading Anne helped me validate my feelings about myself, and understand what dear friends of mine have told me: "we don't love you DESPITE your flaws, we love you BECAUSE of them!" It's so true!

That is all. :) Merry Christmas, all!
Lauren