What Novels can Teach Us
By Anne Perry

This letter will be rather short, I am afraid, because I am away from home far more than I expected this month.  I am actually writing it in a hotel bedroom in Milan, Italy.  I have been in Italy just over a week, first three days here in Milan, then by train first to Vicenza, then Verona, and back here again.  From here the second time I took the train south to Florence, and the next day on to Rome.  This evening I am back here, ready to go to Scotland and then London tomorrow.  I don’t get home again until four days before leaving for Vancouver!

All the time in Italy I have been accompanied, and looked after, by a friend of several years, who is also the translator of the most recent two of my books, so he was also outstandingly good at translating my answers to all the questions from interviewers and readers, because he knows the books as well as I do, possibly at this stage better, since I am several manuscripts ahead.

I speak a little Italian, but it only takes a small mistake to get it all entirely wrong.  Just as a tiny example, there is only one letter different, in Italian, between the word ‘to translate’, and the word ‘to betray’!  All the difference in the world between ‘you have translated me well’ and ‘you have betrayed me well’!  It gives one cause to consider how with only the tiniest slip Scriptures can be mistranslated to mean something entirely different!

Another thought on the depth of understanding clearly came to me when I was sitting in a book shop glancing at the shelves while waiting for a translation of my words to be completed.  I noticed how many of the books were translated from another language, not only European but in some cases far Eastern as well.  They were stories to be read for pleasure, not works for students.  I have not seen such a wide selection of culture in bookshops at home.  I think that is our loss, or perhaps I should say, our fault.  Are we too self-absorbed to be interested in other peoples?  Do we not realize that all peoples over the whole earth are as much the children of our Heavenly Father as we are?

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People across the sea are children of God just as we are.

It is not difficult to learn at least a little about the thought, the belief, the daily life, the laughter and the pain, the anxieties and the joys of others.  And with understanding comes not only liking, but the widening of our own minds, the deepening of our culture and intelligence and the width of our own appreciation.

I have heard some people boast that they never read novels, only biographies and histories.  I think that is tragic.  Histories are very interesting, but are the outer facts.  Biographies may or may not be true, they are the guesses made by others about a life they did not live.  Autobiographies are what people wish us to believe about them, and maybe largely true, or very little, but are always only part of the story.

A good novel, a really good one, is a chance to walk a few miles in the heart and mind of someone else, to see into the dreams and beliefs that make them who they are.  No one can live more than one life, even if they are fortunate enough that it might take them to many places and allow them to touch many cultures.  But with great novels we can see into the lives of people of any age or land, every circumstance and either sex.  Can there be anything in life more important to learn than how to relate to, understand and love our fellow men?  Surely that is how we learn to know more of God, and serve Him more.

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Reading a novel may be the only way you can learn what it would be like to live on that far-off mountain.

To say, “This is your child also, my brother or sister, but he is different from me, and I don’t want to know about him and I don’t care,” has to be a denial of life itself.

I have been fascinated here to meet people of most extraordinary depth and intelligence, to talk of all manner of things.  They have not all been Italian, there was most notably a Swedish man and an Irish woman.  We had love of so many things in common and other beliefs I found fascinating and new, and in some cases agree with, in others needed to consider more carefully to know whether I do, or not.  But there is little in life more exciting than a new idea!

We spoke of some of the great literary giants of the past who light all Western culture, standing like beacons over the ages — the great Greek tragedians, poets and philosophers like Dante (my personal favourite), Shakespeare the Georgian poets of England, Russians like Dostoevsky, and Frenchmen like Proust.  And the great painters, musicians, sculptors and architects, so many of whom were Italian.

What a breathtakingly beautiful country this is!  I do not mean the land (although it is) because unfortunately it rained every day but the last, so I saw little through the downpour.  I mean the cities.  Every glance, every corner turned, shows some new, exquisite sight.  There are buildings that dwarf the imagination, squares, fountains, statuary, arches and doorways everywhere.  In Rome my hotel was in the shadow of St. Peters.  I could fill the entire letter with description.  Sufficient to say the world is so beautiful, the works of man made in praise of the works of God, are endless, joyous and beyond price.

How much does it behove us to do all we can, as well as we can?  If we make anything, build it, write it or in any other way create it, let it reflect the best in ourselves, in our dreams and our beliefs, so that those who come after us may catch a glimpse of our trust and our gratitude and our love, a heritage from Him who made the whole world.

Now I must repack my case and prepare for my flight in the morning, and gather my strength and my wits to do my very best.

Believe in yourselves, and in Him in whose image we all are made. 

Until next month.