{"id":1518,"date":"2024-11-04T23:31:22","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T04:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/?p=1518"},"modified":"2024-11-04T23:31:22","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T04:31:22","slug":"finding-nostalgia-in-very-old-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/2024\/11\/04\/finding-nostalgia-in-very-old-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Nostalgia in Very Old Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I first read Jane Eyre<\/em> I was in high school. I had been given permission to go through my father\u2019s office and take any books I wanted, and I did so eagerly. Looking back, I think there was a desire to prove that I really was a reader, that I could take books that I thought were suitably grown up and understand them and enjoy them. Those books sat on a shelf in my room for a little while as I tried to get my nerve up to find them interesting. They were all old, and most of them hadn\u2019t been read in years.<\/p>\n

So I picked one that, after a few false starts, seemed the least intimidating. Jane Eyre<\/em>. I could read about a woman named Jane \u2013 that wasn\u2019t too bad at all. So, to prove that I was absolutely very grown up and reading a grown up book and was really very smart, I went downstairs to read in the living room, just in case anybody wanted to see what I was reading.<\/p>\n

I stubbornly struggled my way through the introduction, and eventually I got to the good part. I remember the exact moment that it clicked for me. I was sitting next to a window, I could hear the rain pouring outside, but I was dry and warm with a pillow on my lap, and I was reading about Jane Eyre. Except actually, I was standing in Gateshead Hall, reading about birds with Jane. I was standing at the top of the stairs confronting Mrs. Reed. I was sitting in the middle of the stream with Jane as she got to explore the outdoors of Lowood. I was walking away from Thornfield Hall with her and sleeping in the moors under the stars. And all of those moments coalesced into a beautiful feeling of nostalgia for all of the imagined scenes I created as a child, for every moment I had dreamed that I was experiencing these moments of exploration and nature that Jane was. I was absolutely transported. Although I didn\u2019t understand the nuances of the novel, I enjoyed it and every moment of Jane\u2019s journey took me along with her.<\/p>\n

It was one of the first moments where I felt like I really related to people when they said that they were transported into a novel, where I was really present to that experience. And I had chosen it for myself, without any prompting. Of course I fell in love with it. Since that first reading I have read it a good many more times, and every time I have learned more either through class discussions and readings, or on my own through my own reflections. I have never not gotten something out of reading Jane Eyre<\/em>, and I think that\u2019s really special. Even as my understanding of the inner mechanics of the text have changed, I still find myself utterly fascinated by all the questions reading it inspires. I initially picked up Jane Eyre<\/em> for reasons entirely beyond the text itself, but every reading beyond that first choice has been driven by a curiosity to learn more about everything within it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I first read Jane Eyre I was in high school. I had been given permission to go through my father\u2019s office and take any books I wanted, and I did so eagerly. Looking back, I think there was a desire to prove that I really was a reader, that I could take books that … Continue reading Finding Nostalgia in Very Old Books<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145914],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2024-blog-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}