A Novel That Influenced Your Life
A Novel That Influenced Your Life
In your younger days, did you ever read a novel that became a pathway to where you headed? i.e. the further education you sought, your career choice, the relationships you preferred?
When I was in grade 11, third year of high school, our English teacher required to read and hand in a book report on the Jane Austen novel, Pride and Prejudice. My report was a little different than most because I reported my opinion that both Elizabeth and Darcy exhibited both pride and prejudice. Sure, Darcy was proud, but he was also prejudiced against persons who were his inferior, such as the country folk of Merryton, whereas Elizabeth was not only proud of herself and her family, but severely prejudiced against Mr. Darcy. I really got marked down for that opinion, but the novel, its brilliant characterizations, its romantic story, its depiction of both good and evil, and how easily one could become seduced by the latter.
I cannot count the times I have read that novel, never tiring of the language, or watched the movies made of the story, and I mean ALL of the movies made of the story.
I blame that novel for my choice to major in English Literature at my university, and when I graduated, sought out the longest possible course to remain a student before having to become truly responsible for myself.
So, has any novel sent you off on the life direction that you have taken, and if so, which novel, and how did it manage to be a causative factor?
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I expect that most NT members have read a novel in their lifetime, and any one will do.
Night by Elie Wiesel.
I can not tell you or anyone how irate it made me.
To this day I can not watch such movies or read such stories without becoming incensed.
I even had to read it to my daughter when she was ill with lyme disease. Terrible.
When younger, my mom had difficulty understanding my refusal to accept such things as inevitable.
Really, I couldn't understand the situation. It was beyond me.
It was one of several contributors that sent me on a journey where I met my ex. I don't regret a moment of it.
An interesting time and channeled my anger.
When I was ten years old my grandmother and grandfather gifted me a copy of Jack London's ''Call of the Wild''....
We had no money and a book was far beyond any gift we could imagine.
I still remember her and my grandfather bringing it to our house wrapped in butcher's paper....Where they got the money to purchase it is beyond me.
I have read that book numerous times and at a young age identified with ''Buck'' in the book. It taught me never to give up and set me on a course of being a life long activist for Indian causes.
I still have the book, (it was a used book when gifted to me)....The book is over 80 years old.
To Kill a Mockingbird without a doubt.
How did it affect you? What did it do for you?
In the Conversation With Gregory Peck that I posted, a man told Peck that it was because of that movie that he became a lawyer, and he even named his son "Atticus".
Gave me pause to begin looking at life through the lens of those unlike myself and the insanity of bias.
Is there a novel you can refer to?
I have no idea why I asked you that after you already told me.
Guess I was having a "senior moment".
"The Old Man and the Sea, which I guess you might call a short novel. What did I take from it? Even when the prize of victory has been unjustly taken away, all that gets left is that good fight to achieve it.
Excellent comment.
It wasn't a novel but the book "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell had a major influence on my younger self. The description of archetypes and mythologies that are common to cultures around the world felt very positive to me.
And his famous saying: "Follow your bliss"