Last week, I closed the book Tom Lake, at the part where the character Peter Drake is introduced. I already know what happens because I listened to the book on Audible, read by Meryl Streep. Fantastic reader, by the way.

After turning out the light, I went from sleepy to wide awake as I started trying to “cast” the characters in this book for a movie. Who could play Peter Drake?

Tom Cruise is too short and Tom Hanks isn’t handsome (though he has throughout his career portrayed endearing characters). I thought of them first because they both have dark hair, yet knowing they are too old now to portray Peter Drake, age 28 when the story begins, I ruled them out.

Author Ann Patchett describes Peter Drake as tall, slender, dark eyes and “his black hair, long and pushed behind his ears” (p.73). Hmmm.

Even when I woke up in the middle of the night, this question led me to think it out again. The only person I could think of is Chris Pine, though he’s too old right this minute (age 43) and he doesn’t have black hair. Definitely handsome enough. And movie magic can do a lot to make a character appear younger, then older. You know.

What’s weird is that the next morning I read a blogpost about “perfection” and society’s quest for beauty, and guess whose picture the writer linked to?

There is no such thing as a “perfect” anything—because the assessment of perfection requires some objective, uniformly agreed-upon standard that’s impossible to define.
For instance, this face is so freaking perfect in my estimation that IT HURTS MY EYEBALLS to look upon. I don’t want to like it, because I am a fan of quirky, unique looks, and for God’s sake, this is like a Michelangelo sculpture come to life, but I CANNOT LOOK AWAY. It’s not even real, right?

Tiffany Yates Martin, Fox Print Editorial

(The link will open in another tab to reveal pictures.)

Writer to Reader and Reader to Writer

This got me thinking about writers, about what gives words the power to animate, words that ignites the imagination of readers and can make intangible things real. Characters and stories created first in a writer’s imagination then come to life in the minds of readers through words.

Does the reader feel the love described in the story? Can a reader feel the love the writer lavished on his creation that extend beyond physical boundaries of time and space?

A writer aims to reach minds and hearts. How is it that characters become more real to readers than their creators?

What makes the Velveteen Rabbit seem real? Or Pinocchio turn into a real boy? Anne of Green Gables? Elizabeth Bennett? Is Aslan real?

In fact, as a reader I know more about the characters writers create than I do about the writer him/herself.

Figuratively speaking, of course, I know Romeo and Juliet as if they had actually lived, not Shakespeare. I know Scarlett O’Hara, not Margaret Mitchell. I know Atticus Finch and Scout, not Harper Lee.

In a conversation with my son, also a reader, we discussed how different readers respond to the same book. One reason book clubs are so engaging and stimulating, helping us see how other people view the world. Books open their character’s experiences to relate to the reader’s lives.

The important point to note: once the writer releases the book, it belongs to the reader.

The writer creates the character and then the creation takes on its own life in the minds of readers.

Can the creation exist without a creator?

“It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.” 

Frederick Buechner

For me, blogging began with Buechner in January 2009.

Could Buechner’s books have existed without him?

It had never occurred to me until after I read that Frederick Buechner died this past year, I could have written to him. Reading that some readers of Buechner’s books did write letters to him, I felt a pang of regret. I like to think if he had written to me, I would know he really existed.

To have expressed my thoughts about how his writings had helped me would have been for my benefit––both as a way to make tangible how his words and his ideas had reached me and to reinforce the effect of those words.

I met a woman in seminary who had corresponded with C.S. Lewis. She brought C.S. Lewis’s letters to lunch one day, prompting discussion of the actual person behind all his writings. What an amazing opportunity, to read and handle the pages C.S. Lewis had written.

Perhaps letters from people who read books encourage the writers. Even if those who write to authors never receive a reply, I can imagine the satisfaction an author of books could feel reading words used to describe how his/her words made a reader think or feel.

Working on my own writing projects, I have this same desire to create. To create something that comes to life in another person’s mind.

Words, ideas, characters, story. The life that’s in books has a life of its own.