Hemingway is A Boss

You tell ’em Hemingway

An Epiphany of Sorts…

Naturally, I’m going to start this with a quote, from a book I’ve recently read, Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare. Here goes:

“One must always be careful of books…and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”

Eloquently said, Miss Tessa Gray. But I digress.

I have recently been reflecting on what exactly makes a good book (in my opinion), what makes me favor one over another, and I came to a sort of block. Throughout my reflecting I kept reading, throwing myself into new worlds and losing myself in them, hoping to gain insight from characters that never really existed except in my mind and my heart. Then I realized that I’ve really known all along what makes a book matter to me but could never really put into words… That sensation of attachment to characters, their thoughts, feelings, actions, and worlds. It remains quite agonizing, however, how inadequate that description is, how hard it is to put into words just how a great, momentous book makes me feel.

With another quote (shocker) I think Hazel Grace Lancaster from the The Fault In Our Stars has a good take on this idea, saying:

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book”

Evangelical Zeal. Is that what that is? After further thought, I have come to a summary of my feelings that still do not do the sensation justice, does not quite grasp the inexplicable impact of a great book and its imprint on the soul itself, but here goes…

You know it’s a great book when you get that indescribable clenching feeling around your heart as you read it, as if it is simultaneously breaking and growing with each word. It is as though the characters’ threads of thought and emotion are entwined with your own, creating an immaculate, delicate embroidery on your heart that ultimately unravels you and leaves you in shambles when you must leave them. A good book never truly leaves you, however, no matter how much times passes between the present and when last you closed it. Ultimately, a good book changes you, for better or for worse;  it breaks you down and builds you up again, leaving an imprint on your soul that alters how you look at the world, and at yourself.

So yes, Tessa Gray, you were right: words do have the power to change you. And yes, Hazel Grace Lancaster, books can in fact shatter your world. Both have happened to me among the pages in which you both reside; you have done it to me yourselves.