Bedtime or Reading Time?

 ...when, I say, these things leave us, we either sink exhausted into longings for the future, or turn back and recall visions of the far departed past.

- The Duke of Zamorna, Charlotte Brontë

I stay up late to finish the last story in this collection of early writings by Charlotte Brontë. What is it that causes me to ignore my necessary bedtime to read a good book? Why wouldn't I just close the book at the precise time I need to go to bed? Ah, it's too difficult to stop reading a good book.

This collection of stories, Tales of Angria, is from Charlotte's late teens and early twenties, when she and her siblings created an imaged world of dukes and duchesses, mystery and intrigue, drama and wars. The storytelling draws me in. It's just wonderful, not necessarily what is happening in the story, but the storytelling and characters she develops is superb. She draws on politics from her day, and characters that are modelled after those figures. This is where Charlotte is developing her skills as a writer. You, the reader, somehow find yourself liking the Duke of Zamorna, but you know he is kind of a scoundrel, modelled after the scandalous Lord Byron (who was alive in Charlotte's time). He tangles himself into webs of family drama stemming from his father-in-law, Northangerland, modelled after the Duke of Wellington, which leads to ill regard and anger, and yet the Duke shows he is brave, charming, witty, and stands up for those he loves.

The intrigue and sweeping storytelling is something I love. I am removed from the world and dropped firmly into this imagined world where Charlotte often describes the action without saying it (developing these scenes as atmospheric glimpses as if viewing a silhouette from afar), and then goes inside the feelings and thoughts of the character. A sort of glittery spotlight on a moment that freezes in time for deeper inspection.

Something in Charlotte's writing sparkles for me, lifting me outside the boundaries of this world and into a realistic fantasy (what an oxymoron!). The creative imagination is flowing freely and such delights show up through the fantastic dialogue, full of quips, quirks, wit, and plays on words. The way charm and jealous suspicion battle each other through the conversations is so fun to read. It is so outside the way you the reader would live, and you stand to the side watching the drama unfold, deciding for yourself the quality of the characters, and why they might be like that.

'I've got a head-ache, Mary." This was a lie, told to awaken sympathy and elude further cross-examination.
"Have you, Adrian? Where?"
"I think I said I had a head-ache. Of course it would not be in my great toe."
"And was that the reason you came away so soon?"
"Not exactly. I remembered I had a love-letter to write."
This was pretty near the truth. The Duchess, however, believed the lie, and disregarded the truth. The matter was so artfully managed that jest was given for earnest and earnest for jest.

Why am I drawn to good atmospheric scenes and witty dialogue? I confess I am not a fan of idle chatter and shallow talk in any aspect, and Charlotte pokes fun at such things frequently in the tales. It's a delight to me to read that. Thus, I end up staying up late to finish reading a tale and eventually the book.

As we, in our everyday reality, view the scenes of real life war and suffering destroying lives of so many, it is all too easy to get caught up in it, letting it consume us and thinking of little else. But that is like letting the battle be won before the war has even hit your land. If something is worth doing and enjoying during regular times, it's just as important to partake in times of darkness and uncertainty in the world. Indeed, it is almost in defiance of the darkness that clouds, as the pursuit of good things is never done in any "normal" circumstances. Days are never "normal".