Fenland Woman: Novel Experience
Claire tells of the life-changing effects of novels.
A good friend of mine thinks that novels are pointless. "Why can't they just say what they have to in a few words?" he says. "Why is there a need to meander around so much?"
Sometimes I see what he means. There is a lot of pap on the bookshop shelves.
The other day I opened my cupboard and saw a pile of novels I'd read six months previously. I didn't recognise them. They were that forgettable.
What is the purpose of yet more tales of wizards, singletons and psychopaths? It really makes me wonder why the authors bothered.
But then, every now and again, I read a novel that reminds me why this form of literature is so important.
A good novel is a ticket to other points of view.
Nadeem Aslam's "Maps for Lost Lovers" is a case in point. Set in an unnamed English town, it revolves around the lives of elderly immigrants from Pakistan.
Before reading it I had never given much thought to the lives of people who arrived in Britain in the sixties and seventies.
If I saw an elderly Asian couple on the street they were just pensioners to me. I did not have the imagination to ask what it must be like to grow old in a foreign country.
A good novel makes you identify with its central characters regardless of their gender, background or whether you would be friends with them in real life.
In reading "Maps for Lost Lovers" I saw the world through the eyes of Kaukab, a devout Muslim mother alienated from her Westernised children. I understood the frustrations of her communist sympathiser husband Shamas, and even a little of how it feels to look back over life from the perspective of old age.
I could never have experienced those things outside of a novel. A film or television drama might have taken me half-way there, but sitting in front of a screen does not require the hours of imaginative absorption needed to read a novel.
A good novel is also a work of practical philosophy. Through reading about the thoughts and actions of characters in situations similar to our own, we are encouraged to reflect on our own lives.
This afternoon I finished reading "The Shipping News" by Annie Proulx. It tells the story of Quoyle, one of life's losers, who moves to Newfoundland and finds unexpected success and happiness.
I've been giving a lot of thought to what constitutes a happy and successful life. Having grown up in a celebrity-obsessed culture I used to think that it came through fame, prestige and status.
In "The Shipping News" Proulx celebrates the beauty of the everyday and the ordinary. Quoyle's happiness is found when he participates in the daily life of a small community.
When I was younger I thought that living a life of quiet anonymity in a small town was one of the worst things that could happen to a person. Now I agree with Proulx. "The Shipping News" has not taught me anything about life I didn't already know, but it has encouraged me to acknowledge my change in attitude.
We need writers like Proulx to remind us of the beauty of ordinary life. It is a thing that is too easy to overlook.
We are surrounded by a media that tells us to look for happiness in variety and drama, exotic holidays, fresh romance and high profile career success. They certainly are nice but it is the everyday that forms the thread of our lives.
I don't believe that anything other than a novel could have been as effective a vehicle for Proulx's message. After looking through Quoyle's eyes for 335 pages I felt that I had almost lived the lesson of his experiences.
A more straightforward type of writing could not have brought me there quicker or more efficiently. Sometimes the meandering one is the straightest path to one's destination.
