I'm not trying to brag. This novel from college isn't great literature. For as many moments where I went Wow, that was actually good, there was a bit of dialogue that made me cringe. The satisfaction I'm talking about isn't the same that I feel when reading or re-reading something like Nicole Krauss's The History of Love or Markus Zusak's The Book Thief.
It's more about reading something uniquely and completely suited to me. It feels much like when you're pulling on a pair of your favorite jeans - the kind that fit just perfectly, the ones that you know you'll need to abandon soon, since they're fraying in all the wrong places.
Anyway, I finished it. All 197K words (am suddenly shocked that it's that long).
I had the same trouble that I had with the Twilight saga. I couldn't make myself go to bed. It obviously didn't have anything to do with finding out the ending. For one, it's a retelling of Pride and Prejudice; it's not really going to deviate from a plot I've watched a million times on BBC.For two, I wrote it. You might say that would obligate me to remember.
But actually, it was funnier than I remembered. I didn't recall all the dialogue I put in there, nor all the romantic moments between Lizzy Bennett and Will Darcy. I kept stumbling over favorite passages that I had no recollection of.
For example, here's one of my favorite non-funny parts, right before Lizzy finds out about Lydia and Wickham, and a scene before Will arrives to comfort her:
There are moments in life when someone needs someone else, and Lizzy had structured her life against these moments. She’d fortified herself from them. To be independent, she’d navigated herself around their onslaught. But sadly, no plan is fool-proof, and this world is too crowded for anyone to be alone forever.
!!!!
That part's a little more Eliot than Austen, but still! I completely forgot that I ever had that thought in my head, and I am incredibly impressed with my nineteen year old self.
I look forward to re-reading the works that I am writing now and the works that I will write someday. That sounds terrible - like arrogance. But I mention it, because I have a vague memory in my head: In middle school, an author came to speak to the students - it might have been Ann Rinaldi. I don't remember much of the speech, but I remember her saying that she couldn't ever re-read any of her books (and Ann Rinaldi has written a lot, forty at least). She said that she couldn't stand it, because she always thought of how she could write it better.
I find that tragic. Toni Morrison is often quoted to say, "If there's a book you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” I hope everyone can aspire to become their own first reader. After all, at the very least, you'll have to read and re-read it during the revision process. At the very most, there is a story that you are aching to read, and the only way to accomplish it is to bring that story into the world.
(P.S. Did you notice how faux-19th C. British my prose got? I'm quite impressionable.)
