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Sunday 27 November 2016

When Books begin to reflect life

I have a confession to make, whenever I like or dislike people or for the matter like or dislike situations, I automatically compare them to literary characters ot books, for example, I dislike a particular male movie star so, my brain always compares him to Willoughby the shifty bounder from Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, or the other day when I felt paraphrased a line from a Charlotte Bronte novel, needless to say, it was a bit weird for the people who heard me, because to be completely honest, a Bronte novel almost always can be depended upon to deliver dramatic dialogue. 

It is the moment right after, when I saw the flummoxed expressions of those around me, that I realise this particular habit of mine. But really all I want to ask is; is it really that odd a habit? I suppose to those of us who are of a literary bent of mind, it may be that I am perfectly normal. But, even if I am completely bonkers, I know that it is perfectly fine to be odd. I have had a lot of fun in my life and gotten away with a lot of really controversial hijinks by having a long- established reputation for craziness. 

To get back to my original observation, I don't know why, but I think that writers of old, especially Jane Austen, Dickens and the Brontes were really on to something. I find that I can always draw a suitable parallel in their novels for just about any person or situation. It really is amazing that novels written all those years ago in such a different era can still be so relevant even now in the second decade of the twenty first century. Perhaps it is the genius of such writers that they studied humans and human emotions so well. I am sure that we can still find a complete nincompoop like Mr Collins or even an intense self destructive and vengeful man like Heathcliff even now. 

I have always thought of myself as a realist, but I find myself changing that opinion about myself lately. You see, I think I might be a bit of an optimist with a romantic's heart. After all who, but a romantic would attempt to quote Jane Eyre in the middle of a heated argument humm?