But then again, if you really only have one story worth telling... It's like with some bands, who start off with a great debut album, and after that, everything is just... lame. So in a way, I guess it is better to stop once you're at the top.
Anyhows, I have a mission. Actually the same mission has been ongoing for quite some years already. Read classics. I mean, they must be classics for a good reason, right?
So after my finals this spring term, I started off with the project again. One of the first classics I read was Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and oh boy, was I in for a treat or what! I mean, what an amazing book. The language was almost incomparable. The storytelling was hypnotizing. The plot so vivid in my mind as I just could not stop reading once I started.
Published in the 1960's, I bet this novel stirred up a lot of controversy in the U.S. It was not often that somebody took the side of a colored worker, after all. And what's great, is that although the novel discusses some really heavy themes, the whole story is told through the view of a little girl, Scout Finch. Timewise, the novel covers several years, and the reader mainly gets to follow the adventurous Summer times of Scout, her older brother and a friend of theirs who comes to town every Summer. The reader knows only as much as Scout, which helps build up tension of course, since a six-year-old is not always included in all the adult conversations. The plot climaxes when the attorney Dad takes on a lost-cause and defends a colored man who is accused of having raped a white girl, even though it seems like the whole world is against defending a colored man. But perhaps what makes this novel a classic even more than its eloquent language and storytelling techniques, is that it is one of those stories you swear could be true. Sadly, it has no Hollywood ending with everyone walking happily towards the sunset. It is a piece of realism that makes you sick to your stomach in the end.
Now, what made me choose this novel was the theme of colored workers' rights in the U.S.A. I had just finished off reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett before I started this one. I have to say, even though I am a bit ashamed to admit it, I did see the movie before I read the book. I tried my hardest not to, but since the local bookstore was out of copies and I just couldn't wait... But even though I had seen the movie, the book was an absolute treat. The movie was pretty great, okay, but the book went a lot deeper in so many ways.
Human rights and equality issues are themes that have always interested me, so already in that sense the novel offered a lot to my always-yearning-for-more mind. But also the language use really impressed me. As a linguist, I can't help but appreciate good language use. I mean, with a great plot and good storytelling, one can manage to write a best seller even with plain language, but when you add beautiful language to those qualities, you get classics.
