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| Story ID: | 1969 |
| Written by: | Diana Shellenberger (bio, contact, other stories) |
| Story type: | Musings, Essays and Such |
| Writers Conference: | $100 Prize - Shannon Hyle Memorial Contest – “For the Love of Books" |
| Location: | Longmont Colorado USA |
| Year: | 2007 |
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As much as I treasure the influence of important people in my life, certain books have also shaped me into the person I am today. Written by people I will never meet, these books have delighted, challenged and inspired me. By simply opening a book I can visit authors anytime and acquaint myself with the particular terrain of their minds. In the interest of brevity, I chose five books—three novels, a biography and an autobiography—that have made the most lasting impressions on me. In every case, they are books I have returned to again and again. When I thought about what else these books had in common, it became clear to me that I selected them because they provide images of humanity I admire. Each book describes exemplary lives; knowing that such lives have been lived or imagined is inspiring and enormously comforting to me. 5. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy A great example of the writer as guide. Roy creates a world so distinct and vibrant I feel as though I’ve lived for a short time in her village in India. Her use of language is singular and poetic; she almost makes up a new language, but one still mercifully familiar enough to understand. “Heaven opened and the water hammered down, reviving the reluctant old well, greenmossing the pigless pigsty, carpet bombing still, tea-colored puddles the way memory bombs still, tea-colored minds. The grass looked wetgreen and pleased. Happy earthworms frolicked purple in the slush. Green nettles nodded. Trees bent.” (Harper Perennial edition, 1998, p. 11) The God of Small Things also features the most exquisitely rendered lovemaking scene I’ve ever read. This is not an easy book to read. There is no happy, redemptive ending; Roy lets each story line go to its logical conclusion. But I think her honesty and her love for her characters, as well as her precise and beautiful descriptions, compensate for the heartbreaking consequences her characters face. 4. Plainsong by Kent Haruf This book interweaves several storylines so seamlessly, it’s easy to forget what great skill it takes to make it so. Plainsong is a love letter to this fictional rural community in Colorado where Haruf’s main characters are living good and important lives. Especially touching is the story of two brothers. When these bachelor ranchers are asked to take in a pregnant teen, they accept anxiously. What do two old guys know about what a girl in trouble needs? they ask themselves. The men needn’t worry; all the years of caring for the land, their stock and for each other have amply prepared them to care for this wary, confused girl. Their old house becomes more than a safe place for her; it becomes home for her and her baby, and she loves the two old men like family. Haruf’s novel Eventide tells more of their story. I recommend it, too. 3. The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett I found this book when I was seven, at the same time as I was mastering reading. The joy of being able to read a chapter book on my own is intertwined with the love of this story. It’s a story of how a little girl comes down in the world, a Cinderella story set in Victorian England rather than medieval France. When the heroine, Sara Crewe, arrives at a London boarding school, she dazzles the other students with tales of her upbringing in India, a fabulous wardrobe and her elegantly furnished room. Her father is her only surviving parent, so when she receives word that he is missing and presumed dead in Africa, Sara is forced to work at the school as a maid in exchange for room and board. She is often cold and hungry, and she suffers humiliations from those who envied her. By some miracle, her good heart stays intact; she makes friends with another young maid, a mysterious Sikh who lives in a garret opposite hers, and a mouse who shares her room. Naturally there’s a happy ending for so sympathetic a character; her father survived his wounds, after all, and she returns to a comfortable life with him. It’s conventional fare, I know. But I continue to admire the story because it provides an example of a young person who finds the spiritual resources to weather a crisis with hope, grace and good humor. Sara never stops looking forward to whatever life brings. I’m not the only one who has seen something special in the story. Shirley Temple starred in the 1939 movie version, but I think Alfonso Cuarón (director of “Children of Men” and “Y Tu Mamá También”) did a better job telling the story in his 1995 adaptation. 2. A Fortunate Man by John Berger with photographs by Jean Mohr With moving prose and photographs as intimate as a family album, A Fortunate Man tells the story of an English country doctor in the 1960s. Think James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small, only with people as the patients rather than livestock and pets. People become doctors for different reasons, but in my opinion, the purest is a desire to heal. Establishing healing relationships takes time and proximity, and Dr. John Sassall and his patients were privileged to have both in their tight-knit community. As the keeper of more than just medical secrets, Dr. Sassall enjoyed the same special status as a clergyman. He was ideally placed to deliver the kind of medical care many people, myself included, would prefer: the sense that the doctor not only knows his stuff, but also takes the trouble to get to know me, over the long term, and not just as a patient. 1. The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton Have you ever had the experience of walking past a row of books in a bookstore or library, and one practically falls off the bookshelf at your feet? That’s what this one did. This book was begging to be read. I had no idea what it was about, or who Merton was, but after reading the first paragraph I was hooked: “On the last day of January, 1915, under the sign of the Water Bearer, in a year of a great war, and down in the shadow of some French mountains on the borders of Spain, I came into the world. Free by nature, in the image of God, I was nevertheless the prisoner of my own violence and my own selfishness, in the image of the world into which I was born. That world was the picture of Hell, full of men like myself, loving God and yet hating Him; born to love Him, living instead in fear and hopeless self-contradictory hungers.” When I read St. Augustine’s Confessions in college, I identified with his struggle to be a person of an earned, authentic faith, rather than one that was inherited and largely unquestioned. Merton’s soul was clearly made of the same stuff as Augustine’s. My faith development has taken its own circuitous route. Not only did I need to make more than a few mistakes, I needed to investigate a variety of beliefs before I was ready to devote myself to a life of faith. The Seven Storey Mountain and Merton’s other books reassured me that it’s OK to have questions, as long as I’m willing to pray and listen patiently for the answers. |
