lucy honeychurch far better than self-help books

been exchanging few emails with a friend who always provides interesting tales on his rather happening sentimental life. yesterday, after a year of new names of random girlfriends coming up every two months or so -- and after receiving punctual updates on their ways, tantrums, qualities and flaws... i suggested it could be easy to compare them to famous literary characters.

one of my main frustrations about teaching in turkey is that people here are 100% oblivious to any modern and contemporary literature... and to any modern and contemporary notion of western / european history. this kills me a little bit -- as literature to me is one of the major sources of cohesive observation and understanding of the people we meet and live with. forget self help books, forget therapy, forget agony aunt's columns, forget psychology tests in glossy magazines. i believe books, poems, short stories - if read with an open heart can fill our minds with ideas and references to look at others with a clearer vision: which, i trust, can translate in an improvement of our empathy... as well as a massive enhancement of our sense of humour.

history - as a subject, as a planet - is a form of literature in the extended sense. a kind of endless novel...with a legion of characters and a continuous addition of chapters and narrative twists.

having said this.

this morning i sent an email to my womanising friend and noted that:

-- new flame I. could well be a character from Oscar Wilde's best pages. fickle, funny, ditzy;

-- long lost love C. could be a woman out of one of the early Alain de Botton's books. cerebral and with plenty of ambition;

-- disappointing K. did remind me of a F. Dostojevski's character. sheer ambition and not much else;

-- much adored E. on the other hand did make me think of Jo March in Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott... or some Jane Austen's heroine, like Emma Woodhouse;

and that (finally) S. was a tad like Lucy Honeychurch (too aware and respectful of conventions...afraid of letting out her true self) -- yet before meeting George and ending up becoming "transfigured by Italy"...

(now...enough morning blabbing...time to go for a long swim!)