What Is Reality?

For this Wordy Wednesday (on a Thursday), I had planned on writing about Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair. Unfortunately, despite pushing the blog back, I didn't finish in time. But that's ok, because instead of talking about the plot, I would like to talk more about the general feel of Fforde's book.

 

   (Photo courtesy of Goodreads.com.)

In the book, LiteraTec agent, Thursday Next, tracks down the human manifestation of pure evil. In other words, she's a policewoman for the force of literature in a world where literature is super loved and dangerous. Cool stuff.

But what's really interesting is the idea Fforde plays with -- walking into literature or pulling characters out. Normally, I would classify that information as a spoiler, but if you look at the cover, well, it's not subtle.

As readers, how many of us have dreamed of literally stepping into a book to interact with our favorite characters? I would dare say all of us. But why? There are plenty of books that I have no desire to get any closer to than I already am while I read them. The characters, though they may be interesting, are people I have no desire to meet. Even a lot of really cool fantasy worlds don't call up an urge in me to go live in them. I've got a good life going for me, and I'm content to escape into these other places merely in my own mind.

But then there are those books that I would kill to get into. Characters I want to meet more than any living, breathing person. Places I would trade my current lifestyle for if I could just go see them for a day.  But why? 

I would argue that this desire stems from the illogical place in my brain that insists the characters and places are actually real. After all, I've shared personal experiences with these people and spent a good long time living in some of the universes. What's to say that they aren't real, in a certain sense? Perhaps this desire is just so my logical brain that knows literature only exists on the page and my illogical brain that knows literature is also a living, breathing thing can finally agree. As if stepping into a book could cure the disparity that rages in my subconscious.

What do you think? Are characters and places we read about real because we experience them, or for something to be real, must we be able to touch it? Then what does that mean for our emotions?

Deep questions that I've been turning around a lot in my mind lately.