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dolorosa_12) wrote2012-07-06 11:17 am
dolorosa_12) wrote2012-07-06 11:17 am
A few words on the subject of serendipity
So, if you've been reading this blog at any point in the last, oh, nine years, you probably know that there are certain series of books that I adore and rave about constantly. And if I had to narrow the list down to 'the most life-changing books I have ever read', to the books I would take with me on a desert island, to the books I would carry around in order to keep myself sane in a post-apocalyptic scenario, I would name three series: the Pagan Chronicles by Catherine Jinks, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman and Romanitas by sophiamcdougall. These series all came into my life at precisely the right time, and have affected, influenced and transformed me in various ways. I could read them again and again and again and still discover something new.
But what struck me this morning is how close I came to not reading any of them at all. The sheer crazy random happenstance that caused me to read all these series is completely ridiculous.
1. Pagan Chronicles
When I was in Year 5 (ten years old), I was chosen, along with probably four or five other kids in my year, to go to a reading by this author I'd never heard of, Catherine Jinks. (The reading was held at the old Griffith Library, which sadly no longer exists, because the ACT government clearly hates me for my childhood nostalgia. It's a real shame. The librarians at that library were amazing human beings. But I digress.) I was often chosen in primary school to go on events like this because I was a) really well-behaved, b) extraordinarily nerdy and c) known for being very, very bookish. Anyway, once my mother found out about the event, she bought me the first four books in the Pagan Chronicles so that I would know what Jinks was discussing during the reading. (The fifth book was not published until years later.) I devoured the series, falling in love with the characters, the humour, the emotional depth, the world that Jinks had created.* I wonder now why I didn't get her to sign any of the books at the reading, and regret that now. My copies of those books are so well-loved that they're falling apart; I can quote various passages verbatim, and I still come back to them, again and again, whenever I need cheering up. And if that reading hadn't happened, or I hadn't been invited, I would never have discovered them.
2. His Dark Materials
I think I've told this particular story before, but I'll tell it again anyway. In the summer of 1997, my mother gave me Northern Lights/The Golden Compass as either a birthday or Christmas present. (I can't remember which, as she always used to give me huge quantities of books on both occasions.) I put it aside and read many of the other books I'd been given as presents, because the cover of that edition put me off. (It was one that had Lyra, Pantalaimon and the armoured bear Iorek Byrnison on the cover. 'I don't like stories about animals,' I remember thinking when I saw it.) But I brought it with me when my dad took my sister and me on a holiday to the south coast on the week after Christmas. I was whining to my sister that I had nothing to read and was bored, when she put Northern Lights into my hands.
'Read this,' she said.
I was unenthusiastic, but did so nonetheless. And when I had finished, I promptly turned to the beginning and read the whole thing for a second time. That was the first time I'd ever done that with a book. I'd reread my favourites lots of times, but never done so the moment after I finished reading a book. And if my sister hadn't got fed up with my complaints, and if I hadn't taken her advice, I would never have read it.
3. Romanitas
This one came into my hands via the most random of circumstances. In 2007, I was working as a subeditor at the newspaper where I had worked for years as a book-reviewer. My editor got hundreds of books sent to her from publishers every month. While she passed some of them on to reviewers, she didn't do so with all of them, and every three months or so, she would dump all the unwanted, unreviewed books in the tea-room and all the other journalists, editors, admin workers and so on could take whatever they wanted. I happened to be in the tea-room the day she dumped a set of books that included Romanitas, and picked it up, along with a whole bunch of other books. The other books were pretty unremarkable, but Romanitas was incredible. I'm not sure why it wasn't passed on to review, except that I know that the SF/F reviewer at that paper is rather picky about what he reviews, and in any case, the book wasn't really being marketed as SF/F at that point (a fate that seems to befall many counterfactual books) and I suspect my editor just didn't know what to do with it. Anyway, I am so thankful that it was unwanted (and I went on to write a very flattering review of the third book in the series for that paper, so I think that more than makes up for it). And if I hadn't been working as a subeditor that year, and hadn't been in the tea-room at that particular moment, or if someone else had picked it up before me, or if it had been given to someone else for review, I never would've discovered the series.
It makes me wonder how many life-changing books I've missed out on by not being in the right place at the right time.
____________
* Also, now that I think about it, that was the first series I read that had a canonical gay character. That's right, homophobes. I read a book when I was ten years old with a gay character and the sky didn't fall. Australian YA authors: writing with representation since 1995.
sophiamcdougall. These series all came into my life at precisely the right time, and have affected, influenced and transformed me in various ways. I could read them again and again and again and still discover something new.But what struck me this morning is how close I came to not reading any of them at all. The sheer crazy random happenstance that caused me to read all these series is completely ridiculous.
1. Pagan Chronicles
When I was in Year 5 (ten years old), I was chosen, along with probably four or five other kids in my year, to go to a reading by this author I'd never heard of, Catherine Jinks. (The reading was held at the old Griffith Library, which sadly no longer exists, because the ACT government clearly hates me for my childhood nostalgia. It's a real shame. The librarians at that library were amazing human beings. But I digress.) I was often chosen in primary school to go on events like this because I was a) really well-behaved, b) extraordinarily nerdy and c) known for being very, very bookish. Anyway, once my mother found out about the event, she bought me the first four books in the Pagan Chronicles so that I would know what Jinks was discussing during the reading. (The fifth book was not published until years later.) I devoured the series, falling in love with the characters, the humour, the emotional depth, the world that Jinks had created.* I wonder now why I didn't get her to sign any of the books at the reading, and regret that now. My copies of those books are so well-loved that they're falling apart; I can quote various passages verbatim, and I still come back to them, again and again, whenever I need cheering up. And if that reading hadn't happened, or I hadn't been invited, I would never have discovered them.
2. His Dark Materials
I think I've told this particular story before, but I'll tell it again anyway. In the summer of 1997, my mother gave me Northern Lights/The Golden Compass as either a birthday or Christmas present. (I can't remember which, as she always used to give me huge quantities of books on both occasions.) I put it aside and read many of the other books I'd been given as presents, because the cover of that edition put me off. (It was one that had Lyra, Pantalaimon and the armoured bear Iorek Byrnison on the cover. 'I don't like stories about animals,' I remember thinking when I saw it.) But I brought it with me when my dad took my sister and me on a holiday to the south coast on the week after Christmas. I was whining to my sister that I had nothing to read and was bored, when she put Northern Lights into my hands.
'Read this,' she said.
I was unenthusiastic, but did so nonetheless. And when I had finished, I promptly turned to the beginning and read the whole thing for a second time. That was the first time I'd ever done that with a book. I'd reread my favourites lots of times, but never done so the moment after I finished reading a book. And if my sister hadn't got fed up with my complaints, and if I hadn't taken her advice, I would never have read it.
3. Romanitas
This one came into my hands via the most random of circumstances. In 2007, I was working as a subeditor at the newspaper where I had worked for years as a book-reviewer. My editor got hundreds of books sent to her from publishers every month. While she passed some of them on to reviewers, she didn't do so with all of them, and every three months or so, she would dump all the unwanted, unreviewed books in the tea-room and all the other journalists, editors, admin workers and so on could take whatever they wanted. I happened to be in the tea-room the day she dumped a set of books that included Romanitas, and picked it up, along with a whole bunch of other books. The other books were pretty unremarkable, but Romanitas was incredible. I'm not sure why it wasn't passed on to review, except that I know that the SF/F reviewer at that paper is rather picky about what he reviews, and in any case, the book wasn't really being marketed as SF/F at that point (a fate that seems to befall many counterfactual books) and I suspect my editor just didn't know what to do with it. Anyway, I am so thankful that it was unwanted (and I went on to write a very flattering review of the third book in the series for that paper, so I think that more than makes up for it). And if I hadn't been working as a subeditor that year, and hadn't been in the tea-room at that particular moment, or if someone else had picked it up before me, or if it had been given to someone else for review, I never would've discovered the series.
It makes me wonder how many life-changing books I've missed out on by not being in the right place at the right time.
____________
* Also, now that I think about it, that was the first series I read that had a canonical gay character. That's right, homophobes. I read a book when I was ten years old with a gay character and the sky didn't fall. Australian YA authors: writing with representation since 1995.