Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Home and Happiness are two words that my mind has always been fraught with. At times I have wondered whether these two words aren't highly overrated. But then we do spend a considerable amount of our lives looking for a place we can call home and in doing things we suppose can bring us happiness. Yet, is home really only a place? Or does happiness means a continuous state of feeling content with everything you have in life? I am sure the definitions of these words aren’t the same for everybody.

As for me, I guess I am still searching for what these words really mean to me.

Beside alliteration, what these words seem to have in common is a pursuit. A quest which necessarily makes you turn inward. Towards a place, not essentially physical, that must be your safe haven. Where you not only live but find yourself. Where your fears may be allayed and you gain strength to carry on with life. A place that will never disappoint you, will never turn you away, that will grant you a sense of self - assurance, an assurance that no matter how imperfect this world or your life may be, it is still beautiful to be able to glance at it, to behold it and cherish the goodness that it bestows upon you.

For me, as well as for many readers I am sure, that place is literature. It is the world of words which gives me such refuge, a kind of nourishment for both mind and heart. And to find an echo of your thoughts in the writing of an author therefore becomes so precious. It makes us realize that we are not all alone in feeling the things that we do, that there are people like us who feel the same way. And I do think that it is really very ennobling.


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