Why readers want to return to their favourite works – even ones that are incorrectly considered solely “children’s” books, is a worthwhile question. What kind of comfort and solace is derived from rereading the same works and revisiting the world’s most famous heroines, like Anne Shirley, Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet?
All of these questions are posed and answered by Erin Blakemore - the author of The Heroine’s Bookshelf: Life Lessons, from Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls.
Even by reading the introduction to Blakemore’s book, readers will cease to consider that rereading their favourite book is a “guilty pleasure”, but a healthy step towards becoming a stronger person and a heroine in her own life. Blakemore explains why.
When returning to old books, she said, “…the familiar women we found pressed inside the covers—Anne Shirley, Jane Eyre, Scout Finch—had much to add to stories we already knew backward and forward and lessons to impart that may have eluded us when we read them in earlier years. Reading and rereading became a system of emotional mile markers, a ‘you are here’ to reference as we prepared to travel heroines’ paths.”
She says that it doesn’t matter that some of these heroines lived 200 years ago or more.
“Our favorite authors and their plucky protagonists have much to teach in times of strife, even when our own heroic spirits have been dampened and deflated. A bit of literary intervention can give your inner heroine the guts she needs to keep pedaling when the entire concept of fitness seems daunting, to confront a disrespectful supervisor or survive formative and miserable life crucibles like childbirth or end-of-life care. Literary heroines face things like judgmental neighbors and bumbling proposals of marriage with aplomb. And they were given these qualities by women writers, some long-dead, real women with bills to pay, relatives to appease, children to feed and educate, and selves to discover. Just like you.”
Blakemore devotes an entire chapter to Anne Shirley and what readers can learn about “happiness” through Anne and L.M Montgomery. Stay tuned for that blog coming up on AnneOfGreenGables.com.
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