Sometimes books find us.
When I was younger, I used to peruse Coles bookstore, looking for a book that spoke to me. And believe me, I looked through nearly every book, trying to find 'my kind of books.' And it wasn't always apparent to me which ones were 'mine.'
Some stories never have, and never will, speak to me. I was just recounting to my friend Liz how I dropped the book The Luminaries within the first 30 pages. I didn't realize, when I first started reading it, just how bored I get with certain fiction genres. (I definitely feel like bored town gold rush and stories focusing on mining or oil don't interest me.) She was sympathetic in many ways. I am sure she feels that way about many books I recommend to her. Probably at least part of the reason our attempt at a book club failed. (Note: Room is not a nice novel to have as a first book club novel. Child abuse doesn't really appeal to some people as a conversation topic.)
I used to be in love with Mercedes Lackey. She was everything to me. I read and re-read her novels. The Sword of Knowledge was one that I kept coming back to. (Even though she was a co-author with another person, her voice came loud in clear in her style of writing) In no way, was there ever an actual, physical sword that had magical powers within the book. I kept wishing for it to be there, though. Each reading, I looked again, to see if I could find the Sword of Knowledge, somewhere within in the pages. It wasn't until many years later, with much reflection, that I realized that the sword was knowledge. The book was actually about magicians, people with weak arcane powers that in all honesty, were more scientists than magicians. And that made them powerful. Knowledge was more than power, it was a weapon, and it was often the character who used it as a weapon was the one that was least expected to use it as such.
For years, I have been looking for magic in the real world, not unlike the character in the book I am currently reading. The Magicians, by Lev Grossman. When I was younger, I found it in fantasy novels. When I matured a little, I found it in God. When I faced adversity as I became older, I found it in myself. The main character goes through many phases of unhappiness, and is often left questioning his own existence, even when he has nearly all the power in the world.
I sometimes feel that I have all the power in the world, and nothing to do with it. I have time. I have opportunity. And yet I do not find what I need to find and I am not becoming the kind of person I need to be. Like in The Magicians, the main character feels like he constantly misses the mark (and often he does). Because even with all the power in the world, it doesn't mean that life turns out like a certain kind of fairy tale.
And that's because as often as you choose stories, those stories choose you. You make choices, decisions in your life, and yet no matter what, we have narratives that we weave through those stories. When I was really down during my early twenties, I found The Alchemist. When I was discovering who I was in high school, I was in love with The Catcher in the Rye. When I decided to do a master's thesis in philosophy, I was attracted to the very antithesis of my desires in Augustine. And I became that antithesis while trying to think through a difficult problem in my life, and within the sphere of reason and religion. I am still thinking in that sphere, as a fallen human being, one with a chaotic, sinful nature requiring grace.
Though we cannot always choose which books, which stories, which tales and fables will make us who we are, many of us struggle against the monotony of daily tasks to realize something different than is displayed to our five senses, something real and tangible, yet not necessarily affecting our direct lives.
It's often these kind of stories that keep us safe, keep us warm at night.
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