Dear Agatha Christie,

Yours were the first mystery books I was to learn to love. After, I was to discover the appeal of Father Brown, of Sherlock Holmes and Watson, but you were the first. I say learned to love, for, if I remember correctly, my opinion of my first (Elephants Can Remember) was less than favorable. I had enjoyed it, even liked it, but I didn't regard it with any particular degree of fondness. Perhaps this was merely because it was my first; I had never liked books where people died, let alone were murdered, so for me to take a great liking of your books was a bit of a change in tastes.
After I finished Elephants Can Remember I returned it to the library and forgot all about it. That is- until I started hearing your name mentioned again. So I asked around, looked into a few titles that were mentioned to me as favorites, and read The Man in the Brown Suit and The Secret Adversary (I really don't remember which came first) and suddenly I had a list four pages long and was crossing off titles at a mad pace. Needless to say, those two titles remain high among my favorites to this day. Especially The Secret Adversary, which I would really consider my favorite among them all.
Now, some fifty plus books later, I would mention you among my favorite authors. It is still my goal to read all of your books and I have a consistent stack of three hanging about in my bedroom and various canvas bags. I suddenly discovered how much I liked reading mysteries, contemplating the characters, motives and opportunities. I'm still not overly fond of the type of book that focuses on the death, but the thing that I have noticed about your books is that you do not focus on the death, but more on the lives surrounding that death. I think I remember a few scenes in various Poirot books where he says something to that affect, about how his aim is not to condemn the guilty but to save the innocent.
Of course, the problem with mysteries is I find myself getting very cautious about giving my affection to any one of your characters. Or if I do, I end up feeling torn the entire book, thinking oh please don't let my darling be killed, oh please don't let my darling be killed. Or worse, OH PLEASE DON'T LET MY DARLING BE A MURDERER. OH PLEASE. THEY'RE GOOD. GOOD. PLEASE. Which really isn't the most relaxing way to read a book, but oh the relief if your character comes out safe and happy and proven the good person you always knew they were!
Aside from all my love for you as a reader, as a writer (or as someone who hopes to be a writer) I am constantly in awe of you. My question is, how, how, did you ever manage to write so many? To come up with that many different plots, all of which succeed in fooling me. (Or if they don't fool me, I'm always exceedingly proud of myself for having figured them out.)
I know that I shall continue to love your books for years to come. Someday I shall have read them all, and then, I suppose start back at the beginning again, because by that time I'd have sure to have forgotten parts of the ones that I had read first.

With love, Emily

Dear Elizabeth Gaskell,

It is the very farthest thing from my intent, dear Mrs. Gaskell, to rebuke you for anything that you could not help. Indeed, I wish not to rebuke you, for I am most assured that if you could have helped it, you would have done your very best to do so. Thus, it is with much regret I state the cause of my great sorrow, knowing it to be something you could not alter or change.
I know you did not mean to die before you had finished the last words of Wives and Daughters. I know it to be something that was far from intentional, and it was not with the intent of vexing me that you did so. In fact, I fully realize that it is most self absorbed of me to be carrying on about my sorrow when I really ought to be speaking of the sorrow of your family, or of you yourself. I'm sure it wasn't entirely pleasant for you.
You see, though, my sorrow is the sorrow of all of your readers. We laughed, we cried, we knew just how you were intending to end it, but we were never to have that satisfaction of reading that ending in your own words. We were never to have the satisfaction of closing our copies with a happy sigh, knowing that all was right with our world.
We were left waiting with Molly, waiting for it to turn right, waiting for news of Roger- waiting. I think very few of us had any doubt how our story would turn out, we knew from the very beginning that Roger and Molly were meant to be together- but our story was left in silence.
I rather wonder how many readers, after their first heartbreak of unfinished story, were driven to resort to desperate measures; writing a sadly insufficient ending but satisfactory in as much that it was an ending. My own was scribbled on a few pages of notebook paper, in a factual and rather bare style, exactly what was needed for an end. A properly sentimental treasuring on Roger's part of a rose, a happy ending for those characters who needed one, and a brief mentioning of those characters who needed an ending, but who we did not wish the fullness of happiness to. After that I felt that I could move on, with only a few looks of regret at that unfinished story.
North and South has one of my favorite endings of all time, and I can only imagine Wives and Daughters' unwritten ending with regret.
I really do need to be rereading both North and South and Wives and Daughters sometime soon. It's been far too long since I've read either. Though of course, I always end up crying over both. Choosing between them I would have to say that Wives and Daughters is my favorite. I love North and South, with an especial fondness in my heart for some certain scenes, but Wives and Daughters can't help but be my favorite. Perhaps because I have more love for Molly than Margaret.
I've been meaning to find more of your books, besides those two, that will have to come next of my rather lengthy reading list. You were the author who brightened my life after I was in that "there are no more Jane Austen novels left to read" state of despair.

Much Love,
Emily

Dear C.S. Lewis,

Sometimes a memory that sticks with you is not a major event in your life, and perhaps it isn't even a very important memory. Still, it is a memory that lasts you forever. I have such a memory in connection to you, Mr. Lewis. Actually, I would like to correct that and say I have several such memories in connection to you, dearest Mr. C. S. Lewis. For it is a very sad childhood that doesn't contain many such memories of venturing through the wardrobe into the land of Narnia. (on that topic, do you know what an impression that made on me, Mr. Lewis? As long as I can remember I have been opening all wardrobes I come across with a quickened heart, only to stare dismally at rows of coats or to bang upon the wooden backing.)

My first memory of one of your books however, was The Magician's Nephew. It was a (relatively) hot summer day, and I had created for myself a nest of pillows on the front porch. I was about ten (for all the best memories happen when one is ten. Ten is such a delightful age. My favorite birthday was the year I turned ten, and I have bunches of favorite memories from the year I was ten. Ten is a year of exploration, of imaginings and days that seemed to last years in and of themselves.) Do you ever have those memories where you close your eyes and it is as if you can feel it all again? When I close my eyes and think of The Magician's Nephew, it is as if I can feel the warm sun shining down, hear a crow call (I'm not quite sure why a crow call always reminds me of this particular memory, but it has a very prominent place in it for some reason) and I'm sitting on a bench with my back propped up on at least two pillows. The book is a huge one. It was a collection of the entire series of Narnia books, and I was reading the first.

I suppose, really, what I'm trying to say in a round about way is what a prominent place Narnia had in my childhood. So prominent that a memory of reading one of your books is one of my clearest, it is as if you can step back in time to the day and place I was reading that book. I'm not even quite certain that was the first time I had read it, but it is my first strong memory of it.

As with any really well written book though, the Narnia books only grew to be better with each read. Suddenly they weren't just stories about a magical land with snow and a lamppost as they were when I was first reading them, but something beautiful, filled with symbolism and beauty.

My favorite of them is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I used to be rather scared of parts, but after the fright left, love came in it's place. The ending is so beautiful, with that scene where the albatross leads them out of the hopeless dark, and then when the children step to shore on the island and it is a lamb who they first see. A lamb that changes into Aslan. That just gives me pleasurable shivers.

I just want to say thank you, Mr. Lewis. Thank you for opening the wardrobe door and leading us into Narnia. Such a safe good place for us, filled with the good true and beautiful. A place that became only more lovely as the years went by.

(my only quarrel with you is how you finished off Susan's story. I'm sorry to say my childhood self has never quite forgiven you for that.)

Your stories will always have a place on my bookshelf.

Love,
Emily

Dear Laura Ingalls Wilder,

Oh Laura. As long as there's been books in our home and stories for bedtime... there's been you. Countless are the times I've heard your stories; they drift through the room as they are being read aloud or played in CD form, they sit waiting on various bookshelves and nightstands, even those too little to read flip through picture books telling your same stories in simple sentences. You are more than just a story on our bookshelf, for your stories were real and so the little girl on the pages sprung to life and she too became more than a character on a page. We knew that while we could peep in on part of her life, listening to the words that you wrote for us, there were times where she slipped away into history and we could not follow. After a while our little Laura character would come prancing back, after helping Ma with some chores or playing with Mary, perhaps you would tell us about those things, or perhaps you would let a few days of things that seemed uneventful slip away and tell us instead of a story that Pa told you on some cold winter's night.

Both character and writer were you, and perhaps that is part of your magic. There is a time when almost every child reading a much loved book has whispered out "Oh I wish it were real." and has been disappointed, but not with you, Laura. For you take that child by the hand and lead them back into your real life, teaching them what it was to churn butter and live in a dugout.

If you had not been the writer you were your stories might have fallen flat. A person may have beautiful and wondrous stories to tell, but unless they have the words to tell them with their stories will remain, forever trapped in the past. Oh how glad we are that we have you, you who knew just how to tell those stories to us. You knew what memories to tell to us, you knew which were the ones to retell and which were the ones to keep locked away as your own. Your stories lived before our eyes. With each word our imaginations gained a better image of Pa playing his fiddle, Ma and her busy hands, Mary with her goodness, baby Carrie who grew out of being a baby before our eyes, Grace who wasn't even alive till we reached later books, but most of all you. Even when you were telling about being naughty, it was naughtiness that we all knew we would have committed if we were you- for you gave us a little girl who was both lovable and real. Real because she was you.

It seemed as if we could practically smell the pies and cakes that Almanzo's mother always made, that we could hear the rustling of the skirts at the dance at Grandpa's house, and it seemed to me that if I just closed my eyes I might open them again to see you and Mary perched on pumpkins playing with your rag dolls.

You grew up from being our playmate, to a school teacher, to a mother and wife. It seemed like we grew up with you. As we got older we went from book to book, traveling with you away from the little house in the big woods, across the prairie, into town; everywhere you went we went with you. Yours will be stories that last with us for always. Stories that we will want to read again and again. You see, not only were you a character we admired, a heroine of a lovely story, but you were a real women who's story was not a fairytale. You inspired us, but it was not heroics that were unattainable. You showed us your failings, most of the time those were what you were trying to show us, but you were a dear, good, courageous woman who we loved.

You and Almanzo, Ma and Pa, Mary, Carrie, and Grace will always be a part of our home. You take us back to a time in history that is now past, a time of traveling over the country in a covered wagon, knowing that you may never see the family you left behind again. I think this should make us (us as in your readers) realize how fortunate we are, blessed in that no matter how many miles we are separated by, we are only a relatively short plane ride away, when put into perspective. We are blessed with the soft beds which are ours to lay down in at night, the roof over our heads, the knowledge that we are safe and warm.

I think we should also question why when we are so blessed we still worry and complain and fret such an awful lot. If you had complained the way we do over every little thing you would have been unbearable to live with, perhaps, that is what we are more than a little of the time. Perhaps we need to have more faith; faith like the faith that kept such a family as yours going though you knew not what was going to happen to you from day to day. You knew that you had each other, that you were safe wherever you were, and that God was watching out for you.

We are blessed with our families, with our home, enough food, and the faith that whatever happens God is watching out and taking care of us. Why should we worry more than you?

With much love and gratitude to you, Laura,

Emily

Dear Noel Streatfield,

I'm sorry to say that I really don't know you all that well, Miss Streatfield. Our acquaintance has been of a limited sort; you haven't been one of the author's who I have come to know extensively through biographies and such. As it happens, all I really know about you is that you have written the Shoes books, and I have read- but really, isn't that the usual connection between author and reader? The author writes, and the reader reads. Perhaps the reader becomes so enthralled in that person who has written a book that has become so beloved to them that they go searching for every book they can find about that person and their life. Perhaps the book is enjoyed for an hour, and then set away, and both author and book are forgotten.
I think the true test of a book though, is not the book that sends the reader running for ten others by that author. Or the book that has the reader finding biographies and searching for information on the Internet. It is the book that comes to the reader's mind when someone asks about "good books," years after that book has been read.
You're books are just that.
It has been years since I was about ten years old and reading Ballet Shoes for the very first time, but if a little girl of about ten-ish years were to come and ask me for a recommendations, I would think of Pauline, Petrova and Posy right away. It was only about a week or so ago when I was shelving books at the library that I came across a little hardback book with the title of Party Shoes, and I put it in my stack of books to take home with me because I remembered how much I loved the other Shoes books. I'm still going to read that other book of yours, actually, I just discovered what a quite a lot of books you have written that I haven't read yet. Isn't it such a nice thing to think how many books out there that are yet to be discovered and read? I hope I will never be without a stack of fifteen books to read, it would be such a waste of time when there are so many out there that there sometimes never seems enough time.
Perhaps someday I shall even find a biography about you, but for now, know that those books of yours that I have read I would recommend for everyone, no matter what their age. Know how much my ten year old self loved those books of yours, and how three of them still remain on my crammed bookshelf, though the books surrounding them have changed from American Girl and Boxcar Children books to Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell. (Of course I still have my American Girl and Boxcar books, they're just being read by younger siblings now days.)
I'm trying to think which of the three was my favorite...I believe when I was younger it was Theater Shoes (For a while it was the book that convinced me that I wanted to be an actor) but the one I remember the best now is Ballet Shoes. Dancing Shoes is the third book that remains on my bookshelf and I love it as well. I hope when my baby sister gets old enough she will love them just as well as I always did.
Sincerely, Emily

Dear Lucy Maud Montgomery,

Dear Mrs. Montgomery,
There are many authors who I could have chosen to write this first letter to; authors who I regard with more than a little awe. Authors who's work I have loved, that has inspired me, and makes me want to write- to create the beauty of those words strung together for my own. (Though at the same time striking such awe into me that it seems a desecration to even think of calling myself a writer, when they are called such.)

You were the only one I considered though. You have the first place in my heart, the first mention in my ramblings, and this, my first letter of October, belongs to you.

Your books have been such friends to me that through them I feel as if we were friends. I can imagine you wandering through the fields muttering dialogue to yourself, and sitting down to write. To write Anne, Emily and Valency, those characters so very real to me that they, as well as you, feel to be my very dearest of friends.

If I were ever to have met you, I would no doubt, have said "Mrs. Montgomery," in such a way as I begin my letter, and it would have been all that is most horrendously forward and presumptuous to even think of referring to you as "Maud." (Doesn't it make you just cringe when you hear someone who is writing an article or biography refer to that person by their first name? I always feel rather indignant "How dare you refer to Jane Austen, JANE AUSTEN, as Jane. As if you had that right. *indignant sniff* That's Miss Jane Austen, to you Sir or Madam." but as I am writing a letter, a letter that is already traveling back in time to reach you, I feel that it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to go back further to when you were a little girl and "Maud" and me being of much the same age as you, I would be "Emily." I think we would have been the best of friends.

I remember reading once that you always felt that you identified the very most with "Emily" out of your characters. Do you know, growing up she was one of my least favorite. I loved all your books of course, but back then I was especially attached to Anne and the Story Girl. It's been a while since I've read your Emily books (I have them on my nightstand, and I'm going to be reading them again next) but as I've gotten older I've appreciated Emily much more, and, I think, started identifying with her in a way I never did growing up. Maybe it's because Emily and I have much more similarity than I ever thought we did, that I always liked Anne better? You know, how you can be friends with the most dissimilar of people because you each admire the other for their strengths, while they might not be your own. Kindred Spirits, even though personality can be very different. Perhaps what draws me to Emily now is not personality (though there is some of that) but that Emily has more than just a liking of writing, she has this need to write. It was part of her- in that way that it is a part of me. I think too, that while Emily enjoys being surrounded with people, enjoys spending time with those she cares the most about, after a while she needs to be on her own and sort things out.

Your writing is beautiful, dear Mrs. Montgomery, I would read anything you wrote. In fact I think I've read practically ever story of yours (I especially love your short stories). I love reading stories about you too, but I couldn't read your journals. It would have been different if you had gotten around to editing them for the public, but those were yours, they weren't intended for any eye but your own. It almost makes me sick to think about prying eyes falling upon your heart and soul that you had transformed into words. I wish, oh how I wish someone had kept them from being published. I remember when I discovered them I read your recordings about your childhood days quite happily, and I was so happy to have discovered something about you in your own writing, but I decided after a while that you wouldn't have wanted me to read any further. So I stopped. I wouldn't have wanted anyone reading those words that I had clearly written as a way of thinking- a way of sorting through emotions that seemed impossible to understand and letting go of things that I had been bottling up inside. Those journals weren't for me to read, and they weren't for anyone else.

Much as I should love to keep writing to you, dear, I'm afraid I must finish off here. I only want to add how thankful I am that you wrote, and that you wrote such dear beautiful things as Anne and the rest. Thank you ever so much. You will always remain one of my very favorite authors, and have been ever since my Mom first read me Anne of Green Gables such a very long time ago. As I have grown older I have learned to love other books, but yours will always have that special place in my heart as being one of my first loves. Books that only get better with each reading.

Much Love,
Emily

31 Days of October (2012)

 

 

It is a well acknowledged fact that November is the month of Novels. Those with an ambition to write are suddenly taken up in the mad craze to write a full novel of 50,000 words by the end of November. National Novel Writing (or is it writers?) Month I believe the official title is, though most of us simply say NaNoWriMo.

 

...but if November is the month of Novels what does that make October? (Besides being the month where we are "supposedly" busily writing up outlines for our grand novel. That is, if I screw up my courage to come up with an actual plot and outline, both of which happen to be the banes of life.)

 

October is the month of Thirty-One posts on one subject. 31 Days in 2012

 

I was rather taken by Her idea of a daily post in the form of a letter for this challenge. I'm already a day late in starting this, but to my credit I only heard of the idea yesterday and I had to turn it about in my mind a little before I could decide what I wanted to do myself.

 

My letters are to be addressed to various authors. Basically to those authors who I've always wanted to write a letter to, but as they would never receive them, never have. Of course, what I wish is that they could all write me back, but as that is highly unlikely (Unless the Doctor shows up for me in the Tardis) I shall have to content myself with writing to them and dreaming of a response.

 

Wouldn't it be nice to hear from them just when I'm planning out a novel?

 

"Gil: I would like you to read my novel and get your opinion.

 

Ernest Hemingway: I hate it.

Gil: You haven't even read it yet.

Ernest Hemingway: If it's bad, I'll hate it. If it's good, then I'll be envious and hate it even more. You don't want the opinion of another writer."

*happily pretends this conversation from Midnight in Paris is directed to me*