By their books shall ye know them

    If you had to plot a person on a map of character, so to speak - i.e. mark their position on a chart of temperament, foibles, predilections, and so on, you could do worse than define them with reference to their taste in books.

    I came to this conclusion the other day when I was reading Cynthia Harnett's The Wool-Pack which is set mostly in the Cotswold village of Burford, a place I know slightly, and indeed I've stayed in The Bay Tree in Sheep Street, a building which could be the model for the Fetterlocks' house in the book. Picturing the location, I quickly sank into the story and its delightful and detailed look at 15th. century rural life, and then I noticed that on the endpaper of my library copy was a map with places such as Newbury, Winchester and Southampton all marked. "Oh no," I thought, "don't tell me that Nicholas has to leave the safety and comfort of home and go on a journey!" And with a moment of sharp self-awareness I realised that if I'd been a member of The Inklings when Tolkien was writing Lord Of The Rings, I'd have said "just let them stay in The Shire, Tollers," and then where would we be?

    In case I give the wrong impression, I do of course leave my northern fastness to venture 'abroad', I am not a recluse, but I love home and my roots go down deep, so any novel which makes much of a happy house and a settled person is welcome on my shelf. Let them travel if you must, I would say to an author of their characters, but bring them safely back again, so that at story's end these lines of Browning's might sum things up:

   The year's at the spring
    And day's at the morn;
    Morning's at seven;
    The hillside's dew-pearled;
    The lark's on the wing;
    The snail's on the thorn:
    God's in His heaven—
    All's right with the world!

Comments

[esmeralda]

One of my favourite books as a child.

Is it a great failing as reader to refuse to have one's withers wrung? I cannot bear books where there is only hopelessness, bullying, long prison sentences or depression. Cannot read misery memoirs. Sometimes I fear this is because I am a lightweight who uses literature to escape from life. But would defend myself by saying that in my life, in anyone's Real Life, no nastiness is unremitting, there is no pain or despair without humour or human comradeship to stand against it. Which is why, for example, I did not find Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy unbearable, because the protagonists are real rounded people and evil does not wholly triumph.

[cath]

What a beautiful piece of thought and writing, this is Cornflower.

[Mr Cornflower]

We are in good company. It was Albert Camus who said "there is nothing to be ashamed of in preferring happiness".

[LizF]

My late dad used to quote the last four lines of the poem but I never knew where it came from, although I'm sure that he did, so thank you for enlightening me!

I'm not a fan of cold-hearted books either. They don't have to have the conventional happy ending (although I have to confess a sneaking fondness for those that do) just a little humanity and I have no compunction in abandoning a book which fails to have any hopefulness whatsoever!

[Liz Wood]

I love my home too but your piece reminded of Carol Shields's remark in her biography of Jane Austen: every novel is about a character's search for a true home. This is very profound and I wish I had read it while I was still teaching Literature!