Novels can impact us in ways other media simply cannot. This was a lesson I learned as a child. I remember the feeling of walking into the school library and being surrounded by magic. The knowledge. The stories. It felt as though the entire world was opening up to me — and it was. Reading changes us, regardless of whether the story is good or bad.
I remember a co-worker reading Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn at his desk while on his lunch break. The world simply ceased to exist when he was reading those pages, and I was fascinated by the cover.
“Any good?” I asked
“Oh, yeah. I can’t put it down. I’ll give it to you when I’m done.”
And he did. It was a hardcover copy, and as someone who prefers hardcover books, I appreciated the gesture. I told him I would return it, but the truth is I never did. But that’s a story for another time.
I remember starting to read the book and loving the premise. I can still see it on my nightstand in that old apartment I lived in at that time. I loved everything about it. As a fan of the Highlander movies and television shows, the katana sword on the cover was the icing on the cake. But as a painfully slow reader with a short attention span, I never finished the book. The story remains incomplete for me to this day.
But I have never stopped thinking about this book. I can’t tell you why, other than that every so often the title resurfaces in my memory, and I think about that Nightingale Floor, its meaning, and wonder what happened in that story which ultimately resulted in a series of books.
I have long since lost the copy my co-worker gave me. Shuffled about in move after move as life often dictates, it was lost to the ether somewhere along the way. Last night, for no reason whatsoever, this book resurfaced. But this time I did something about it and ordered another copy.
It has been over 20 years since this novel first crossed my path, and though I never finished it, I have never forgotten it. And to be clear – I did not finish the book because it wasn’t any good. I actually recall enjoying it greatly. The problem, as is typical of me, is my short attention span and that I am a painfully slow reader. Something I am working to correct, but that too is a story for another time.
I love that books, even those we fail to finish, can impact us and imprint themselves on our souls. That we carry them with us for decades, and that there are those special ones that call to us and that ultimately we return to. My dream has always been to have this effect on others with my writing. Pursuing that goal now, in earnest for the first time in my life, leaves me faced with the responsibility that our writing innately carries.
I pray I am up to the task and worthy of the honor that comes with being a writer. Trite? Yeah. Even writing this now, I feel extremely cheesy and ridiculous. But I also know, deep down, it is the truth. Hopefully, someday there will be someone out there who remembers my book cover 20 years later and orders another copy of a story that impacted them so greatly that they are compelled to return to it.
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BRANDON KELLER.NET 