We came on the wind…
I discovered the work of Joanne Harris during my very first contract what feels like a very long time ago. Before that, like a lot of others I expect, I had no idea that Chocolat was based on a book. I had even less idea that it was actually an entire series of books, all about one person.
I have read a lot of books in my life, and I’ve related to a lot of characters. I pull my life philosophy from the words of David Eddings and model my morals on a combination of Jane Eyre and Jane Austen. I am, in many, many ways, an amalgamation of what I’ve read. I am closer to my books than I am to most people. But never, in all the books I’ve read, have I related to any character more than Vianne Rocher.
Perhaps it’s because she blows into people’s lives temporarily and tries so hard to help them only to find that she doesn’t quite always get it right. Perhaps it’s the magic that she doesn’t mean to create that she so often pays for. There is simply something about her.
Touching a life, tending a wound, and then just as swiftly gone. A flurry of brightness in the dull greys of reality.
I like to think I could be that, for someone, for somewhere.
Aside from that, I can’t help but think that the wind touches us all. It sweeps us up and tugs at our skirts (“Try me…taste me…test me…”), some of us listen to it and we step onto its back and see where we end up.
I suspect that – like I said about Lighthousekeeping sometime ago – anyone who knows me, might just have to read these books…