The Timelessness of Storytelling

- Introduction

So lately I’ve rediscovered my love for classics. I have always been the girl that read the “dreaded” books and enjoyed them. Dickens, the Brontes, Alcott and Austen were at the fore front of my obsession when I was growing up, then I got into college and I fell off the bandwagon I suppose. I had a lot of required reading and there is something about being told what to read that takes out the fun in it. And sometimes the assigned books were stories that did not interest me so gradually reading classics began to feel like too much work. Instead when I tried reading for pleasure, I stuck to my trusted romance novels where I knew exactly what to expect - they meet, they fall in love, they fight, they makeup - and I’m not saying there is anything wrong with those stories. it was just that it was all I read outside of assigned reading. Without realizing it, I had lost my first love.

- The adventure

Years went by and 2023 came along. I fell into deep depression and I could not find a way out of it. I did a lot of mindless scrolling on social media and surprisingly stumbled on an exciting hobby, book collecting. I was excited to own these beautiful books with gorgeous illustrations and gilded edges but there was a catch, they were expensive. I could not justify spending so much money on a book I might not like. In fact, I am one of those people who cannot stand looking at a book I dislike in my personal library so I had to take a different approach. I kept scrolling and found my niche, collecting classics. Now that I could get behind, I already loved most of those books and those I had not read, I was sure would not be so displeasing to me. The adventure was about to begin.

But first, where do we start? Brontës? Du Maurier? (Who I had just read for my thesis and loved). Before I continue, I have to tell you that I read so many of these classics really young. And I had a rule when I was younger, re-reading was for people who had nothing better to do (Also I was younger so I remembered everything I read. Oh! to be young and foolish again). I could not remember most of the details of these beautiful stories anymore so I was going to have to break my self righteous younger self’s rule. I was going to re-read all my favorite classics, and collect them all in gorgeous editions. Now that you are all caught up, you understand why I had a big decision to make. I decided finally to make it easy, my favorite author is Jane Austen so it is only right that I begin with her.

- Epiphany

Classics always make me feel everything. Their words, their stories and their characters stay with me long after I have closed the book. And no one does it better than Austen. She delights just as much as she educates. She points a mirror at the reader and asks that you examine yourself, your heart and your mind. Your inherent prejudices, your thought processes and your vanity. What do you see when you read about a villain? Are you drawn to him or her because of their vivacity? Do you make assumptions about people just because they said something you do not agree with? Are you blind to faults because the story is presented a certain way which is really the way you think of things? Do you empathize with people whose opinions you do not share? Or are they lost to you? With Austen, you are discovering a story and meeting characters but also you are discovering yourself. That is the fundamental power of storytelling. It’s ability to act as a mirror to the society but really to you.

My new obsession was no longer mindless, it was enlightening. I had spent so much time immersed in modern writing that I was forgetting what those who came before us had to teach us about art, about creativity, about stories. All books mirror life of course but our society has become so narrow and one sided that we had allowed it to interfere with our storytelling. Classics are timeless and there is a reason for that timelessness. It is their multidimensional characters. Their characters are real, they stay true to who they are but they are also flawed just like real humans. Stories are written about people and people are not one dimensional.

No matter how many times I’ve read Mr. Darcy make his disastrous first proposal, I still find something to learn from that scene. I am still as shocked and strangely flattered as Elizabeth Bennet was. I am still as taken in by Darcy’s gallantry. And I still ask myself, if I were Lizzie, would I be able to resist a man so rich on principle? I leave the story pondering about the whys and the hows, rediscovering nuances I missed of Darcy’s partiality to her. It seems just like I found with my re-read of Du Maurier’s Rebecca, I could not leave the story. It spoke to me and walked with me. I find myself looking up chapters again. Yet in all my adventures with new stories, I did not find that at all. I read them and forgot them as quickly as I picked them up. The characters are weird without any nuance. I can exchange one for the other and I definitely do not understand most of their motivations. I read a classic and immediately need to read more books to prolong that joy but I read new writers and wonder why I still read books.

- Conclusion

I think that their stories are timeless because they pondered over them. They wrote books in years or months, they were observers who were simply putting down what they were seeing around them. They listened more and tried to understand people. They were not just responding without reflecting and they definitely did not mind having unpopular opinions. As creatives, we need to rediscover that magic and we can only do it with deep reflection and introspection. Those writers are timeless because they created from a deeper place than we do. They did not spend their time responding to everything in 140 characters or less.

I challenge you today to find a classic and examine what exactly makes it so timeless. You might find just like I did, the joy of reading or even something more.

Keep creating, keep reflecting, keep being.