Spellbound

This morning I saw this quotation on Facebook. What a nice surprise! Very fitting because it was exactly what I had planned on doing today - telling you all about a joyous positive thing that happened to me! Again!

I finished a book!!

A real novel book! And I liked it! And it took me about 2 weeks, not 2 years!


Another first in a long time ;-)

Let me start with the fact that I bought this book 2 - 3 months ago based on one sentence mentioned in an awesome blog I read. I had no idea what it was about. She said it was good. I bought it. Never looked at it again. Then a couple weeks ago, after giving up my self help books, I needed to read something. I thought I'd try this one.

The book is called The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. 

I was hooked by this book from the very beginning. I would read it at every opportunity. I would read it in bed, past my bedtime, eyes stinging, until I fell asleep with it in my hands.

From the beginning, I was drawn to the narrator's love of books and reading. The way she spoke about it resonated with me. I was excited to hear what she would say next. One of the first lines that got me was:

“For I was spellbound. There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so entralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside they work their magic.”


And then: “For me, to see is to read. It has always been that way.”

That is me – 100%.

The thing I love about books is the fact that everyone can read the same book and come away with a totally different experience from it. Where you are in your life at the time can change what you interpret from the book. This is one major reason why I disagree with people dissecting books, trying to ascertain what the author meant and telling you that is the only version. Firstly, no one “knows” exactly why the author wrote the book and secondly, it is not about that, it is what the reader takes away from it that matters. Like a piece of visual art or music. It is all art and up for personal interpretation.

The Thirtheenth Tale is a suspense story about authors, families and the “ghosts” in their closet. The amazing thing for me is that I got so much more out of this book than the story written on its pages. Not all books can do that to you. Some truly are just the story you read with nothing behind it. To me a great book "works their magic" inside you. This one did that to me. A part of the story is about two sets of twins. What I connected with was the way the author described the feelings and thoughts of the twins but instead of connecting with my own physical twin, I was connecting with my inner self! I connected to the things the characters said but in a totally different context! It hit me as I though I had said or thought these same things over the years. About myself and others, the different thoughts and/or feelings I have had. All about the completely different circumstances in my own personal life.


Oh the multiple light bulb moments that went off all through this story. I can’t even explain! I have multiple highlighted sections all through this book and my next project is to expand on them all in written form. I feel like I have so much to say! Yet right now, right here, if I started to do that, you would have no frame of reference in which to build on, so a lot of it may not make sense. In fact, what I wish to accomplish with "writing" about this is not to rehash or review the book but to clarify the highlighted parts in my own way, what they meant to me and what feelings and opinions they evoked in me.


So this means, I must leave it for another time. Maybe I can share it, after I have been able to put it into words that will make sense to everyone. A brand new writing project for me. So exciting!

If only I can stop reading long enough to write . . . . .