I used to subscribe to a magazine called Ingenue. I don't remember much about it but I did see a review for a book called "I Capture the Castle" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Capture_the_Castle. Then one day at a sidewalk sale, I found it in a shopping cart of books in front of Woolworth's.
It was synchronicity--finding that book was important to me.
On the surface, there were few things in common between the narrator Cassandra and me: we were both 17 year old girls who wanted to be writers.
The differences: she lived in a castle the English countryside--I lived in a colonial in the New Jersey suburbs. She lived in poverty with little to eat--I lived in American middle class affluence with arguably too much to eat. She lived in a literary family--I lived in a family that rarely discussed books.
Yet Cassandra spoke to me. We both struggled with our writing--how could we learn to write? We both struggled with love--how could we learn to live with or without our loves?
I remember my mother asking me what was wrong the afternoon I finished the book. I felt sad. There was no pat happy ending and I felt for Cassandra.
Maybe it was our common age and our common dream that first drew me to Cassandra, but something more has held me to her. "I Capture the Castle" remains my favorite book.
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