I’ve been doing the 30 Day Book Challenge on Facebook. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the challenge doesn’t mean that I read a different book every day; that would be impossible, given the nature of my life! What it requires is that I post a status update every day about a particular book: Day 1 was my favorite book, Day 2 was my least favorite, and so on.
I’ve realized a couple different things while reflecting on the various books. Probably my biggest realization is that I get very emotionally attached to the characters in the books I read. Now, that is not exactly a new realization, but I do think I understand better now the extent of my emotional involvement, as well as the fact that this is an unusual tendency.
What made me think about this issue is the pattern that began to emerge in my challenge status updates. For example, I became so attached to Edgar in The Story of Edgar Sawtelle that I have never been able to finish the book. The book is a modern update of Hamlet, so I know what is going to happen to Edgar, and I just can’t bear it. I know it’s completely silly, but if I don’t finish the book, then somehow Edgar still “lives.”
Then there’s Little Women. When I read the book as a child, I was so incensed that Jo didn’t end up with Laurie that I literally threw the book across the room. I actually blocked the whole thing from my mind–that’s how upset I was–until I was in college, when I saw the 1994 film version. Oh, God, I flipped out again. I know I should try to read the book again, but my blood boils just thinking about it.
There are other, less extreme examples. I recently read the first hundred pages of Never Let Me Go, but I finally gave up because I simply could not get into the book. Why? I didn’t care about the characters. A silly romance I’m currently reading has been very slow going–I don’t know if I’ll finish it–because the main character’s family is so annoying. I like the main character and her romantic interest, so I’ll probably finish it because of them. I am sorely tempted to ditch the book, though, because the other characters are driving me insane.
I used to think the way I invest in characters–for good or for bad–wasn’t unusual. I attributed my tendency to the fact that I love reading, I have a strong identity as a reader, I’m an English professor, etc. I’m starting to realize that even among my peer group–readers, fellow professors–I’m a bit unusual. My emotional involvement with a book and its characters is more extreme than that of most other people.
This is not exactly an earth-shattering revelation, and it doesn’t have any huge implications for me. I’m a writing specialist, not a literature specialist, so it’s not like this really affects my professional life. I think it’s just helped me understand myself a bit better and helped me see why books and even words in general have such resonance in my life. I deeply understand their emotional power, so it’s no wonder why they are so important to me.
A simple realization, but one that helped me understand myself a little bit better.
