Little lives in big times

the books that soothe my soul

Although I have always thought of myself as bookish, and have found comfort and peace in books and words, it took me a long time to really figure out my literary niche. I spent most of my teens readings poor quality literature, which would have been fine if it had been supplemented by quality literature, but it wasn’t. Even once I went to university, where I studied history, my reading was all over the place, and although I loved browsing book shops, I found it hard to know which section I should head for.

I started trying to read more intentionally around the time of my pregnancy with my eldest, in 2017. I remember reading What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt for a book club during that pregnancy, and really enjoying it. Shortly after that, my best friend bought me Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, which I still consider one of my favourite novels of all time. I spent many evenings when my first two children were babies listening to Austen and the Brontës on Audible and falling in love with them, and in recent years, as I have mentioned before, I discovered and loved Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Taylor. Over a few years, I figured out that character driven, realist novels are my strong preference.

If you asked me why I loved these novels, I would say something about how they speak to the human condition, how they’re so perceptive and timeless, how they remind us that the emotional experiences of humans have changed very little over the centuries. Those things are certainly all true, and I have always been obsessed by the human psyche. But whilst finishing up Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell this week, and reading Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor, I had a realisation, almost epiphany, about why I find so much solace in novels where not much happens.

Let me backtrack a little to say that it would be wrong to put Austen, the Brontës, and Gaskell together with Pym, Taylor, and Strout; not only is there a significant historical divide, but the former do deal more with life’s major events - marriages, births, deaths, and so on - whereas the latter very intentionally don’t, or if they do it is only incidental. But what they have in common is that they are about people living through lives that are fairly ordinary to those of their rank and station, without the intrusion of major historical events. Of course, the historical context is extremely important, and the novels offer us important insights into the socio-economic landscapes of the time, but they don’t tell us explicitly about the geo-political backdrop against which these lives are being lived.

At a time when it’s difficult to avoid confronting the big, global events, there is comfort in the reminder that all times, in all circumstances, people are just… living their lives. In Elizabeth Taylor’s A View of the Harbour, she mentions in passing in the opening passages that “there had been a war on” - referring to World War II. This reality continues to pop up here and there, in a romance involving a “foreigner” who would not otherwise have ended up in the quiet English seaside village, or in the persistence of rationing. But these things just crop up to touch the ordinary lives of the characters, who, despite having lived through a traumatic global war, are mainly concerned with whether they have enough sugar for their baking, if their son is happy at school, if their pneumatic daughter can be trusted to keep herself warm.

Of course, some people are living their lives under great threat or in peril, and every aspect of their lives are touched by their harrowing circumstances. That is true now, and it has been true throughout history. There are many novels that address the ways that people survive or even thrive under extreme conditions with heroism, love, sacrifice, and ingenuity. There are also novels that use fantasy worlds to speak to the perennial struggles, little and large, of human existence. But novels that deal with the day-to-day, with the small acts of virtue or of succumbing to vice, with the ways we seek meaning in our usually fairly narrow existence, show us that for most people, the real hard work of life is just ordinary living.

When the world feels scary and out of control, dictated by the whims and apparent disregard for humanity of a few, I am soothed and restored by reading about lives that have sought - even if not found - their purpose in the small matters of unextraordinary existence. Authors like Pym, Taylor, or Strout were not writing about characters who sought virtue, but they do offer us characters who are trying to find sense or meaning or sparks of goodness within lives that no one would describe as heroic or impressive.

There is a place for literature that inspires us to greatness or that elicits awe at the heroism of others, but I argue that there is just as much value to be found in the books that remind us that most of our days will be filled with the normal, boring, messy rhythms of life, and that, for most of us, our highest calling is found therein.