Alive

Letters to a Young Novelist (Llosa, p. 9)

How can reading a novel help you gain insight and depth in your own life?

I was eleven I think, when I first fell in love with reading. It can't actually remember how it started. But I do remember that first novel that I read - an Animorphs book. I can't even recall the number or the story. All that I could remember was Rachel transforming into a cheetah, or the other way around, I don't really know. I just know that it started with that. And the rest of the memories of how I became a bibliophile is now stuck and sleeping in some part of my brain.

I tried to look for the roots of it because it's just so interesting how novels affect me now even if I can't really remember how it all began. To limit the length of my answer, and to give a sense of organization to what I am about to write, novels have helped me gain insight and depth in my life through three ways: (1) providing a place wherein I can escape to when reality limits me and my thinking, (2) being able to journey with the character/s throughout the book, and (3) in a way, their being present in my own life.

I found the lines above quite interesting when I was reading p. 9 of Letters to a Young Novelist by Mario Vargas Llosa. He first mentioned that one of the reasons why writers write was because of rebellion. They rejected reality and created the worlds in their minds that for them, could have been a lot more alive. Readers are also part of this game, and so the lines illustrate what we are led to think when we live a great story. People tell me that the way my mind works is so different from how theirs do. I don't know if that's a good thing, but I do know that most of my thinking, I owe literature. Reading a novel leads to a world that is a lot different from what you are really in, and more often than not, you get lost in that world. And after reading it, you find yourself back in your dull reality. But some novels are really moving in a sense that they lead you to appreciate your reality more. Novels lead you to think. As you are being led to a deeper understanding of the story and the characters, you are unconsciously living that great story. 

Now, the second was not really a big thing to me, until Gaby mentioned it once in class. From then on, the way I looked at characters was never quite the same again. Before, I thought they were people to analyze and observe. Now, I think of them as real people who had real lives and who felt real feelings. And that has made a huge impact on how novels have affected me because the characters did not only become part of my brain. They became part of my life. Some narrators in first-person POV were hard to connect with so I didn't really imagine myself in their shoes, but I just discovered that most of the time, it's the narrators that are far more interesting than the people he presents to us. And some, those really memorable protagonists, become you unconsciously. Their influence becomes too powerful that they sometimes lead you to believe in what they believe in and feel what they are feeling. Their story comes alive as if it really happened in your life. And through their story, you see yourself. You are led to look at your own life and to see what's similar, what's different, and what connects you as reader and character. Before you know it, your life is already changed by memories and the lessons from the journey with the character and the story.

Being present in my own life, I think, can be explained by the two above. It's not just a character that becomes a person, but the novel as well. I used to have these commandments when it comes to book-reading. The opening should not exceed a 90 degree angle. Dust jackets should be kept in the shelf while the book is being read. Corners are not to be folded. And absolutely no writing or highlighting. And many others. But this year defied all those rules. It was because I realized that the condition of the book would remind you of the journey with it. When I look at my Macbeth, Little Women, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Wuthering Heights, and some others that I've read for the past months, I can smile and remember when I was part of the novel and the novel was part of me, because it was not some baby that I tried to handle with caution and care, but it was a person who was once alive in my life and is now a part of my thinking and me as a whole.