Writer in Residence Sarah Ellis

Thoughts on Classics.
On my way to the Osborne Collection in the morning I walk through a neighbourhood in which people put their unwanted stuff out on the street. (A very sensible approach to recycling. Wonder why we don't do this more in Vancouver? Oh yes. Rain.) There are always lots of books. This morning there was a bedraggled copy of The Secret Garden outside one house and, outside another, My Mother, My Self by Nancy Friday. This led my meandering mind in two directions. One was to odd coincidences because before Nancy Friday published My Mother, My Self in 1977 she had written a book called My Secret Garden:Women's Sexual Fantasies. I remember from my public library days that this caused quite a stir when it came out and had a long and somewhat snickery holds list. But after a few more blocks I started to wonder why I had viewed those two paperbacks sitting in the winter sun so differently. The Friday seemed to me to be rejected, finished, out-dated, kaput, sitting sadly on the curb. The Burnett seemed well-loved, alive, doughty, just waiting for its new owner. The question of what makes a book last, what makes a book a classic, is of course far too big for a blog post but here is one thought. I once went to an excellent lecture by John Rowe Townsend on this very question and his conclusion was that the children's books that last do so because of character. Long after we have forgotten the plot we still remember Tom Sawyer and Mary Poppins and Anne of Green Gables and Pooh. So, if you're setting out to write a "classic" just find yourself a strong, distinctive and slightly quirky character. Easy as pie! You heard it here first.