Why I'm reading Wilde.

I bought "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" before Patty and I moved into our apartment in Grand Rapids at the end of the summer. The book takes place at the end of WWII on Guernsey Island, which is in the English Chanel. I thought it was lovely because 1. It's a book about how great books are. The characters lives are all transformed because of the book club that extraordinary circumstances force them to create. 2. The book is written entirely in the letters that the characters write to one another. At first I thought that I wouldn't like reading a book in this format but the letters feel so personal and much more intimate than dialogue. Each letter is written in what each writer thinks is total confidence and you feel that you have a real understanding of what each character is thinking and feeling because they do not hold back in their letters to their dear friends.

Anyway-

At one important point in the plot the characters discover that the letters one of their members inherited from her grandmother are actually letters from Oscar Wilde. The story was that while visiting Guernsey Island, Wilde found the grandmother, a child at the time, crying because her cat had just died. He told her that cats had nine lives, and Muffin still had another 6 to live. In fact, she was at that very moment being born as a cat named Solange in France. He knew this because he had psychic cat powers. After asking the girl her name and address, Wilde promised that he would let her know how Solange was doing from time to time.

Wilde wrote her 8 enchanting letters over the years, each one describing a new adventure Solange, who was something of a feline Musketeer, had during her 4th life.

"French Milk" is a drawn journal of a 22 year old's experience living (and eating) in France with her mother for a month. For her birthday, Lucy visit's Oscar Wilde's grave. "Oscar Wilde is the source of much interest, fascination, love and inspiration for me-not to mention tragedy...." "At the hotel, the bar is which Oscar Wilde had his last drink, before going upstairs to the room with ugly wallpaper, and dying with the famous last words: 'Either the wallpapers goes, or I do.'"

How the hell haven't I ever heard of Oscar Wilde? I bought his only novel, (his other works are poems and plays) "The Picture of Dorian Gray" last Friday and am so excited to read it. Especially since after I bought it, Wilde showed up again in something else that I really enjoyed: 500 days of Summer.

Summer: Well, you know, I guess it's 'cause I was sitting in a deli and reading Dorian Gray and a guy comes up to me and asks me about it and... now he's my husband.
Tom: Yeah. And... so?
Summer: So, what if I'd gone to the movies? What if I had gone somewhere else for lunch? What if I'd gotten there 10 minutes later? It was - it was meant to be. And... I just kept thinking... Tom was right.
Tom: No.
Summer: Yeah, I did.
[laughs]
Summer: I did. It just wasn't me that you were right about.

So, I'm really excited to start reading this!

This all kind of comes back to the quote I originally posted from "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society":

"That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive- all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment."