Character is what I have and you are.
I forget who said that, but I suspect it must have been someone like George Bernard Shaw, he of the biting, trenchant wit and the skills in sharp characterisation.
We all have our favourite characters. Some of them spring up from books. They remain with us long after we have read the final word on those pages, or lent those books, or even forgotten where the books might be. Every book owner and lover can identify with losing books.
The reader requires no special skills to conjure these characters.
They make a warm impression on our hearts. Long after we have closed the book, they continue to sit by the fireside in our hearts, warm and comfortable and totally at home. Their feet propped up, sipping something delicious, they look up at us entering the room and with a smile that transforms their eyes, they say, “What took you so long? I’ve been waiting to catch up.”
It’s a rare skill to be able to create a character like that. One that slips off the constraints of the printed page and occupies a life life persona. Completely three-dimensional. Flesh and blood. As real as you and me.
Some of them may befriend us early on in our childhoods; others may strike a flame later on when our middles are more pronounced than any other part of our bodies. Still others may enter our lives when the silver has touched the soot on our heads. No matter what stage of life we may be in, they leave an impression upon the wet clay of our minds. And they never leave.
And somehow they touch us, leave us better (or worse), but different than we would have otherwise been.
Mere figments of somebody’s imagination they are, and so we supply the substance they sorely need. Our affection strengthens and sustains them long after their authors have written their last books and gone to that Great Big Library in the Sky.
All through April, I will introduce you to some of the characters that have grown with me. The idea is to write letters to each one of them.
It is by no means an exhaustive list, constrained as I will be by the limits that the A to Z April Challenge imposes. Besides, a lifetime spent reading and devouring books necessarily means the accumulation of more friends than I can describe in 26 days.
A few of the characters are not from books. They are elements of pop culture, like films or advertising campaigns or even products, and they’ve stayed with me too for reasons just as strong.
This April, I hope you join me in my endeavour to renew my friendship with these characters. I hope the attempt will remind you of those that are waiting for you in the recesses of your own mind.
I forget who said that, but I suspect it must have been someone like George Bernard Shaw, he of the biting, trenchant wit and the skills in sharp characterisation.
We all have our favourite characters. Some of them spring up from books. They remain with us long after we have read the final word on those pages, or lent those books, or even forgotten where the books might be. Every book owner and lover can identify with losing books.
The reader requires no special skills to conjure these characters.
They make a warm impression on our hearts. Long after we have closed the book, they continue to sit by the fireside in our hearts, warm and comfortable and totally at home. Their feet propped up, sipping something delicious, they look up at us entering the room and with a smile that transforms their eyes, they say, “What took you so long? I’ve been waiting to catch up.”
It’s a rare skill to be able to create a character like that. One that slips off the constraints of the printed page and occupies a life life persona. Completely three-dimensional. Flesh and blood. As real as you and me.
Some of them may befriend us early on in our childhoods; others may strike a flame later on when our middles are more pronounced than any other part of our bodies. Still others may enter our lives when the silver has touched the soot on our heads. No matter what stage of life we may be in, they leave an impression upon the wet clay of our minds. And they never leave.
And somehow they touch us, leave us better (or worse), but different than we would have otherwise been.
Mere figments of somebody’s imagination they are, and so we supply the substance they sorely need. Our affection strengthens and sustains them long after their authors have written their last books and gone to that Great Big Library in the Sky.
All through April, I will introduce you to some of the characters that have grown with me. The idea is to write letters to each one of them.
It is by no means an exhaustive list, constrained as I will be by the limits that the A to Z April Challenge imposes. Besides, a lifetime spent reading and devouring books necessarily means the accumulation of more friends than I can describe in 26 days.
A few of the characters are not from books. They are elements of pop culture, like films or advertising campaigns or even products, and they’ve stayed with me too for reasons just as strong.
This April, I hope you join me in my endeavour to renew my friendship with these characters. I hope the attempt will remind you of those that are waiting for you in the recesses of your own mind.
