On the Shelf

Reading

In the middle of the summer I was a friend's house and I noticed that she had three copies of one book on her shelves. I asked her and she basically forced me to take a copy, and since she is my gateway to all things cultural, I took it. The book was The Awakening by Kate Chopin. It's regarded as a classic by many, a daring, feminist statement for it's time in 1899. An obedient wife gone rogue, I guess you could say.

I started reading during the summer, but life got the best of me and the book was left to dust, like so many books slowly fading away into literary obscurity in my "Unfinished Book Graveyard." This made me a little sad because I really did like the book, I just never got back to it. Etymology was my saving grace.

The Awakening is not a book I would typically pick up on my rounds at Barnes and Noble; I'm not usually one for the chronicle of a turn of the century housewife. I'm glad I have it though. It came into my life at a good time. I'm trying to answer the same questions as the heroine, Edna, only with my future and not my husband like her.

When is settling okay and when is enough, enough? When should I put aside my wants and settle on a good, but lesser option? Settling isn't being defeated or taking the easy way out, it's figuring that some things are more important. Edna didn't see that.

The most interesting thing about this book is the inscription inside. The copy was given to my friend by our mutual ex-vocal coach, a woman who decided not to "settle" with her husband and two children and up and left them after having an affair. The inscription reads:

Thanks for the gift of this book to me. My life experience wants you to remember the following:
Seek slowly the one you wish to love forever... and work hard to make it work. If it doesn't work out, seek slowly again, but work for perfection. 

I may not follow her example, but I'll take her advice.

I'm still not done with the book, but the ending has been spoiled for me. I'll finish it to prove a point and make myself happy. Checking two things off my goals list.

Excerpt: "Her husband seemed to her now like a person whom she had married without love as an excuse."