Inside & Outside
Both Shakespeare and Dickens have almost no equal when drawing the inner landscape of characters. Nothing escapes their deep observation. This is why I like them. But there is also an outside landscape that needs to be told. I find Phinn's novel about the Dales in Yorkshire a wonderful descriptive example. If I read between lines I can even feel the water in the fields, the thin air, the solitude. And of course, nothing better than learning to cope with our own pains.
These three books are my companions these days. They are completely different but even so, they share human landscapes inside.
9 comments:
What is Phinn's novel about? Why do British and Irish green and wet landscapes seem filled with solitude and melancholy? Do you think this influences the personality of the inhabitants? I think it does. Deeply, their inner structure.
Do you find the book on coping with pain helpful? I gave up such books: I used to find them so logical and good, and then I went on behaving as before.
Phinn's novel is aobut himself in his new position as an educaiton inspector in Yorkshire. He provides a very good view of rural schools and their problems. Lnadscape in the Moors and the valleys in the North invites to silence but people are hearty, at least those I met. What I usually look for in books like the one about coping with pain is just meeting something similar to what I feel. I have never tried to find out the solution for my problems. This one, particularly, is written by a woman I heard on the radio and her voice sounded sopeaceful and quiet that I decided to enter her world.
I'd be curious to read the novel.
You are right about not looking for solutions, we have to find our own, and we can only find them when time is right for us. No given one works.
If the author sounds peaceful it means she has really found her way of coping with pain.
"Enter her world"? I would have said "take a peek" or something similar. Your way of speaking of books makes me envy you, it always sounds like a communion. I rarely feel that with a book.
On the stage one must enter the character to act. In books I learnt long ago to enter the author's world. Remember, I'm an addict to reading.
How?
(I'd like to enter any other world right now.)
Don't exactly know how. Long work and lots of reading, perhaps. No idea.
When I finish Phinn's book, I'll send it to you. I find it's not particularly good, but it's curious and sometimes, as a teahcer, one can feel descripted.
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