The Girl Who Reads

"So they wrote about literature, and used characters as codes.  At Cambridge, they had passed each other by in the street.  All those books, those happy or tragic couples they had never met to discuss!  Tristan and Isolde, the Duke Orsino and Olivia (and Malvolio too), Troilus and Criseyde, Mr. Knightley and Emma, Venus and Adonis.  Turner and Tallis.  Once, in despair, he referred to Prometheus, chained to a rock, his liver devoured daily by a vulture.  Sometimes she was patient Griselde.  Mention of 'a quiet corner in a library' was a code for sexual ecstasy...She never wrote that she loved him, though she would have if she thought it would get through.  But he knew it."

---Ian McEwan, "Atonement"

Today, Cecilia sweater looks like this:

And I'm re-familiarizing myself with the original novel that inspired the sweater because there's something to be said for text and language that of necessity can't really make the jump to the screen.  Especially for a story about language and storytelling, that can be a little...limiting?  Then take out language altogether (well, unless you count knitting charts and instructions) and you have quite the challenge.  Still, she looks rather more like I intended now that I've revamped the lace pattern.  And I have the added benefit of waxing philosophical on reading and literature.

There's an essay/short story I found online this morning while nursing a coffee (and the after-effects of two espresso martinis from the night before) that stuck with me more than it should have precisely because of its glorious literary snobbery.  The original can be found here.  Don't worry: it ties all my yarns together about as well as my trusty circulars are doing at the moment.  How well that may be is debatable.

The point is I relate more than I really have a right to relate to the "girl who reads" of the title.  I see patterns when I probably shouldn't, empathize more than is strictly good for me, and live vicarious happily ever afters that likely will never exist.  I think I have been in love precisely once with a real flesh and blood human being, precisely because he saw me as the girl who reads...at the time...and wasn't afraid...at the time.  Because he saw my funny voracious little mind with its need for poetry and stories as an asset, something that turned our tawdry little relationship into a LOVE STORY in big city lights.  And like all stories, this one couldn't possibly translate to real life, at least not directly and without losing some of the inherent beautiful textual and contextual complexities.  Sometimes, knitting patterns are so much more satisfying, aren't they?

Still, I think I'm doomed to associate Cecilia sweater, not with my usual thecraftydoctor tagline, but with the slightly ironic hashtag #thegirlwhoreads.  Which means future posts about said pattern will likely feature said hashtag.  Anyone who can relate is also welcome to beg borrow and steal.  It would be...interesting, in any case, to start a trend.