“Reading For” Reflective Narrative
by Julie Darpino
The first book and subsequent books that kickstarted my love for reading was the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. These historical fictitious children’s books tells the story of Laura Ingalls, her childhood on through adulthood as a farm girl and pioneer. After the first book what I “read for” was to devour those lovely images, while not completely comprehending the words. My mind became filled with a safe haven with sweet images of life on a farm I could always return to an recall. These books became a part of my heart. I unconsciously felt that the essence of the Little House books was already inside me, a part of my own character, a sweet innocence. My writerly awareness also can into being at this time, I wrote a short story that resembled Little House along with the images in my own imagination. I “read for” inspiration to write.
As a preteen I read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. This classic romance set in 1800’s England is the story of Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters, who in a position to marry seek out Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy when they come to the country. Elizabeth and Darcy begin a prejudiced relationship that eventually leads to love. The romance of the novel drew me out of my little world and made me feel conscious of the story happening. I also was coming into my teenage years and romance was becoming a curiosity. It was unfamiliar territory in my mind therefore I began to pay more attention. With this book I began to “read for” to experience the story not just process images.
Not only did I start to read to experience but I “read for” to relate. The first book, or character really, I consciously realized I related to was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. This story is about Francie Nolan growing up into adulthood in 1940’s Brooklyn. Francie is a poor, sensitive, young girl whose pleasures are to observe life from her fire escape, to read, and to write in solidarity. Her life is not an easy one and there are continual hardships but she finds joy in these simple pleasures. As she grows up she begins to lose her innocence. She gains knowledge of life that pains her, but there is still hope, acceptance, and beauty. The tree in her neighborhood stands as a representation of this. These details are what I particularly related to. I was reading about a part of myself happening outside the book. Had I met this fictitious character in person I feel we would have been friends. The story made a lasting impression on me as I realized my own struggles in the coming of age.
I read The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald when I was a teenager. This classic story is about the tragic lives of Anthony Patch and Gloria his wife in 1922 New York. Constant struggles with alcoholism, greed, anger, and unfulfillment embellish this novel and I loved it. I saw in Fitzgerald’s fine writing that tragedy was beautiful. Conflict became exciting to me and I wanted to understand why the characters were going through it and how it shaped them. This is what I transitioned into “reading for” instead of seeking out the perfect world as a child and after approaching my own conflicts I could read this novel as an outsider looking in. My writerly awareness also kicked in again, the last time being when I was a child. I wrote a short drama once again taking the same setting of the book I read. I felt such an emotional connection to my characters. I had never felt before, I felt the story was truly my own and for the first time I felt truly proud of something I created. This continued my “reading for” inspiration to write.
I realized that within the conflict of the stories I enjoyed was dialogue moving and piecing it together. As a young adult I read A Raisin in the Sun and A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The two plays escaladed my appreciation for dialogue and how it could carry a story. In A Raisin in the Sun a about a middle class african american family in 1959 that struggle to find their place in society while wanting to chase their dreams. There was so much power in those characters, they were passionate, fought hard, but also loved much. The power resided in their words, they said exactly what was on their minds, what they wanted, and rarely held back. A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof takes place on a cotton plantation in 1955 Mississippi. The family of big daddy gather at the plantation and undergo a whirlwind of deception, and mendacity. In this plays case, the character’s beat around the bush with void comments, attacks and lies, to the point where they no longer can contain what needs to be said, which is the truth. This made for a very dramatic ending. The characters developed because of their words and in communication with the other characters they were driven to the truth. To enjoy dialogue in this way is something I always love to “read for”.
Recently the way I “read for” changed when I read the classics Jane Eyre and East of Eden. I had to change the way I approached and judged each book. I was forced to change into a different kind of reader I didn’t want to be in order to get through the novel. Jane Eyre is the first novel I felt like was a struggle to comprehend fully. Jane Eyre is an orphaned girl sent to away to school by her cruel aunt. When shes leaves school she travels to Thornfield to become the governess to Mr. Rochester’s ward and during this time the two of them fall in love. The language and dialect in this story was complicated, I had to reread, and read slower. This did not agree with me and made me impatient. I had to put my personal preferences aside and embrace the book for what it was. I took the time to understand, eventually I got better. It was well worth the effort because I fell in love with the author’s use of words. East of Eden is about good and evil, and two families that collide. The main characters lives resemble that of Adam and Eve, but also Cain and Abel. The character Cathy is portrayed as inhuman, and corrupted. She eventually leads the life of a whore and runs a whore house. The events relating to this character made me uncomfortable and honestly I felt deterred from reading the novel because of that feeling. I had to put my personal preferences aside and realize that this character is part of the story, part of it is belongs to her, the author wrote about her on purpose. If I’m going to read the story I need to embrace all of its parts to get the most out of it. This resolution made the book enjoyable. Now I can “read for” in a way that respects a story for what it is, not what I want it to be.
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