Wednesday's Question Of The Day:
Life Changing Book
Hump day? Well, I'll give you something to ponder.
Yes, it's time for Wednesday's Question Of The Day.
Each Wednesday, a new question to give you the opportunity to do a bit of self-examination. Think of it as a way of getting to know all about you and a chance to learn a little more about me.
That's right. You know me; spill that tea! For I am the king of over-sharing!
Oh, and please leave your responses in the comments section.
Why, think of this as a little blogging kiki!
Okay! Ready, set...
Here's today's question:
Which book changed your life?
If a play can be a book, and, in this case, I do believe that it qualifies as a masterpiece of literature, it's...
Murder In The Cathedral
by T.S. Eliot
I was in my second year at college, all of eighteen, and I got cast as the lead in the mainstage production. I sort of upset the apple cart the year before when I was cast as Petruchio in Taming Of The Shrew. That show was clearly chosen for a certain actor who was my senior... He ended up playing Lucentio, but there was a lot of backstage noise to contend with and it made a difficult thing even more so.
I dove into the text of Murder In The Cathedral as if nothing else had existed before it. And, in a way, that was true.
I'm not saying I wasn't a pondering child... I was. My thoughts though were rather airy - concerned with old movie stars, Broadway scores, my record collection, and fantasies about various faculty members and fellow students.
Murder In The Cathedral required me to tear apart sentences, to look for meaning, to decipher, to understand large concepts. And I did. Beatifically and beautifully, I might add. I mastered that damn script. My meaning was plain, my way clear... I felt anointed.
I credit Murder In The Cathedral for focusing and honing my intellectual side. It meant living deeper within my own head, for from that point on... I became discerning. I had no idea people would do evil and choose to do the right thing for the wrong reason... selfish reasons. It taught me about motivation. It would take another twenty years before I saw things in my life for what they were... and another twenty before I had a sense of why it all turned out the way it did.
But Murder In The Cathedral set the ball in motion. I don't think I would have the ability to write or have any grasp on the the language - to use it as a tool - without having digested all that T.S. Eliot had to share in that book.
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Rolling In The Deep - Adele
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