What Novels can Teach Us
By Anne Perry
This letter will be rather short, I am afraid,
because I am away from home far more than I expected this
month. I am actually writing it in a hotel bedroom in Milan,
Italy. I have been in Italy just over a week, first three days here
in Milan, then by train first to Vicenza, then Verona, and
back here again. From here the second time I took the train
south to Florence, and the next day on to Rome. This evening
I am back here, ready to go to Scotland and then London tomorrow. I don’t get home
again until four days before leaving for Vancouver!
All the time in Italy I have been accompanied,
and looked after, by a friend of several years, who is also
the translator of the most recent two of my books, so he was
also outstandingly good at translating my answers to all the
questions from interviewers and readers, because he knows
the books as well as I do, possibly at this stage better,
since I am several manuscripts ahead.
I speak a little Italian, but it only takes
a small mistake to get it all entirely wrong. Just as a tiny
example, there is only one letter different, in Italian, between
the word ‘to translate’, and the word ‘to betray’! All the
difference in the world between ‘you have translated me well’
and ‘you have betrayed me well’! It gives one cause to consider
how with only the tiniest slip Scriptures can be mistranslated
to mean something entirely different!
Another thought on the depth of understanding
clearly came to me when I was sitting in a book shop glancing
at the shelves while waiting for a translation of my words
to be completed. I noticed how many of the books were translated
from another language, not only European but in some cases
far Eastern as well. They were stories to be read for pleasure,
not works for students. I have not seen such a wide selection
of culture in bookshops at home. I think that is our loss,
or perhaps I should say, our fault. Are we too self-absorbed
to be interested in other peoples? Do we not realize that
all peoples over the whole earth are as much the children
of our Heavenly Father as we are?
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People across the sea are children of God just as we are.
It is not difficult to learn at least a little
about the thought, the belief, the daily life, the laughter
and the pain, the anxieties and the joys of others. And with
understanding comes not only liking, but the widening of our
own minds, the deepening of our culture and intelligence and
the width of our own appreciation.
I have heard some people boast that they
never read novels, only biographies and histories. I think
that is tragic. Histories are very interesting, but are the
outer facts. Biographies may or may not be true, they are
the guesses made by others about a life they did not live.
Autobiographies are what people wish us to believe about them,
and maybe largely true, or very little, but are always only
part of the story.
A good novel, a really good one, is a chance
to walk a few miles in the heart and mind of someone else,
to see into the dreams and beliefs that make them who they
are. No one can live more than one life, even if they are
fortunate enough that it might take them to many places and
allow them to touch many cultures. But with great novels
we can see into the lives of people of any age or land, every
circumstance and either sex. Can there be anything in life
more important to learn than how to relate to, understand
and love our fellow men? Surely that is how we learn to know
more of God, and serve Him more.
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Reading a novel may be the only way you can learn what it
would be like to live on that far-off mountain.
To say, “This is your child also, my brother
or sister, but he is different from me, and I don’t want to
know about him and I don’t care,” has to be a denial of life
itself.
I have been fascinated here to meet people
of most extraordinary depth and intelligence, to talk of all
manner of things. They have not all been Italian, there was
most notably a Swedish man and an Irish woman. We had love
of so many things in common and other beliefs I found fascinating
and new, and in some cases agree with, in others needed to
consider more carefully to know whether I do, or not. But
there is little in life more exciting than a new idea!
We spoke of some of the great literary giants
of the past who light all Western culture, standing like beacons
over the ages — the great Greek tragedians, poets and philosophers
like Dante (my personal favourite), Shakespeare the Georgian
poets of England, Russians like Dostoevsky, and Frenchmen
like Proust. And the great painters, musicians, sculptors
and architects, so many of whom were Italian.
What a breathtakingly beautiful country this
is! I do not mean the land (although it is) because unfortunately
it rained every day but the last, so I saw little through
the downpour. I mean the cities. Every glance, every corner
turned, shows some new, exquisite sight. There are buildings
that dwarf the imagination, squares, fountains, statuary,
arches and doorways everywhere. In Rome my hotel was in the
shadow of St. Peters. I could fill the entire letter with description.
Sufficient to say the world is so beautiful, the works of
man made in praise of the works of God, are endless, joyous
and beyond price.
How much does it behove us to do all we can,
as well as we can? If we make anything, build it, write it
or in any other way create it, let it reflect the best in
ourselves, in our dreams and our beliefs, so that those who
come after us may catch a glimpse of our trust and our gratitude
and our love, a heritage from Him who made the whole world.
Now I must repack my case and prepare for
my flight in the morning, and gather my strength and my wits
to do my very best.
Believe in yourselves, and in Him in whose
image we all are made.
Until next month.
