I have been identifying with Lucy Honeychurch of A Room With A View in much the same way that I identified with Lily Briscoe of To The Lighthouse and Katherine Forrester of A Small Rain. Unraveling her character as I turn the pages is an exercise of self discovery as much as entertainment or diversion. Through all of these women, all the characters that I have known over the years, I recieve an ever expanding sense of what it means to be a human and a woman. This sense is invaluable, but I also wonder sometimes if it is misguiding. How true do these characters ring, that I should feel such kinship? What if I "cleverly am being altered" after false images--images that cater to my idea of how things "should" be, rather than how things are? It is so tempting to regard Forster, Woolf, and L'Engle as infallable in their depiction of human beings, and so convenient. If they pen the human nature perfectly, I have a reliable source of information to consult and draw conclusions from. If not, then I must entertain the idea that perhaps my perceptions about humankind, and consequently my perceptions about myself in relation to humankind, are flawed. Of course, they are flawed.
I do believe that the insights I gain through my readings far outweigh the errors I acquire. I would never ever consider reading a step away from the straight and narrow, or a useless empty pursuit.
I would consider it a dangerous one. An occasional reality check into the finitude and fallability of the prophets I so admire is necessary to keep me from a mind unguarded. The act of reading is that of judging (charitably, humbly) and reorganizing one's perspective around the truths that emerge.
Usually my thirst is for an open heart, a pliant mind. My upbringing has conditioned me to be too judgmental and unyielding. However, in my struggle for a teachable spirit I must not forget to discern. And this is yet another tension in a world of checks and balances.
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