Lessons from literary classics

Anna Karenina, Jane Eyre, To kill a mockingbird: all great literary classics that are chock-full of life lessons. Journalist Mariska Jansen explores what can be learned from the pages of a book.

According to British author Graham Greene, knowledge gained from literature begins the very moment you learn 
to read. That magical moment when separate letters suddenly begin to form words and mental images. The 
first book I read on my own was a story about a mouse, a mole and a little rat. They had to leave the field where they lived because people were building on the land. This mini emigration upset me; it went against the grain of my sense of fairness. The animals were there first! Even now, when I pass a construction site, I sometimes dwell on that story from my childhood. Which mice, moles and rats have had to relocate now?

Greene would call the moment that I read this story a decisive one for the rest of my life, because it taught me about good and evil, about unfair power dynamics and the need for nature preservation. According to Greene, the stories you read as a child are like windows through which you will continue to view the world around you. They 
allow you to see past your own backyard and become acquainted with other ways of life that are equally valuable.