I was flipping through an old copy of Martha Stewart’s Real Simple magazine at the doctor’s the
other day and saw a neat column. It was for the magazine’s book club and
invited readers to write in an answer to the question, “what fictional family
would you like to be part of?”
One of the responders said she wanted to be in Wendy’s
family from Peter Pan that way she’d
get to live in London, have a real cool dog and go to Neverland whenever she
was bored. I’ve been thinking about what fictional family I’d want to be part
of and just can’t decide.
First, I thought the Bennett family in Pride and Prejudice. I’d love to be Jane and Elizabeth’s sister, or
friend. But I’m pretty sure the rest of that family would drive me crazy. And
in fact I hate going to parties and talking to people I don’t know. So, how
would I ever manage to spend my days going to balls and dancing and talking to
people I don’t know? I’d also be jealous
of both of Elizabeth when she and Darcy finally get it together. But, I’d want
the happy ending without all the heart ache in the middle.
Then there’s Theosdosia Throckmorton’s family in Robin
LaFever’s Theodosia series. Hanging out at an Egyptian museum all the
time with absentminded archeologists for parents sounds like fun. After all the
purpose of parents in a children’s book is to be gone as much as possible!
Otherwise the fun can’t happen. And of course living in a museum is like living
in the library. We can imagine all kinds of magical things happening at night
when no one is around.
There’s the Weasleys in Harry
Potter, too. That’s a fun and loving family who all get into enough trouble
to make life entertaining. And catching garden gnomes always sounds like a
great new pastime. But really, I want to be Harry, or Hermione, or Ron.
And then there’s Pippi Longstocking, whose father is lost at
sea. Pippi basically doesn’t have a family, which means she can do what every
she wants! So, again, it’s not so much Pippi’s family I want to be in, as I
want to be Pippi.
Maybe the question should be what character do you want to
be? Or even better, for us fantasy freaks, what magical talent do you want? I just
read the Libriomancer by Jim Hines. The
libriomancer is a librarian that can pull objects out of books and use them.
He, of course, is a fantasy and science fiction fan so the objects he pulls out
don’t really exist in the real world. So forget what fictional family I want to
belong to or fictional character I want to be. What I really want is to be, a
Libriomancer!
