Dying to Know You by Aidan Chambers

When I offered to review Dying to Know You I didn’t take much notice of the author, it was only when I loaded the book up on my Kindle that I noticed it was by Aidan Chambers, an author whose books I have enjoyed in the past.

Dying to Know You is a rather unusual book, so much so that when a friend asked me what it was about I really struggled to describe it. I told her that it was sort of like the film with Gerard Depardieu where the character played by Gerard writes love letters on behalf of a young man who can’t put his feelings into words.

IMDB tells me that the film is called Cyrano de Bergerac, and actually that story is slightly different as the writer of the love letters is in love with the recipient as well.

On the surface that is sort of the story here; Karl, a teenage boy tasked by his girlfriend to write her letters revealing his true self, asks a famous writer to help him put his feelings into words.

But it’s so much more than that.

Dying to Know You is written from the perspective of the famous writer (is it Aidan himself? I don’t think so, though elements may be based on fact) and is mostly his recollections of conversations between himself and Karl. But it’s not just a story about a young man trying to claim the heart of a young lady.

It’s about an old man who recognises himself in Karl and tries to help ensure that this young man does not make his mistakes.

It’s about a young man who is trying to find his way in the world following the death of his father.

It’s about discovering the you you are meant to be and being brave enough to let go of the things that aren’t right for you in life.

Again Aiden Chambers has captivated me with a Young Adult novel that stands head and shoulders above it’s counterparts. I highly recommend that you pick up a copy when it’s released on April 1, 2012 (or pre-order it now so you don’t forget).

–SPOILER ALERT–

It’s not often that I use the highlighting function in my Kindle, maybe I’m still getting used to it being there, but I found myself using it on several occasions while reading this book. Here’s some of the passages I captured:

“But then, I said to myself, don’t I have within me more than one self? I’ve seen two Karls tonight, but I’ve been two of myself as well. We’ve both been our summer selves, bright and confident and warm, and our winter selves, distressed and dark and cold.”

This one really struck a chord with me, I know that there are sides to my personality, the happy confident me that I wish I could be at all times, the anxious me that I try so hard to fight and the heartbroken me that I discovered recently. I like this notion of summer and winter selves to put words to those different sides.

“I asked myself what I’d do if this were one of my novels. What would I do at this point to push the plot on? but after trying this idea and that and each time being defeated by crumbling logic, every move lacking truth-to-life conviction, I accepted that this real life problem couldn’t be solved as if it were fiction, because in a novel I’d go back and change the plot so the stalemate would be avoided. But real life evolves its own unpredictable plots over which we characters have little control and only by hindsight, if then, discern the reasons and purposes.”

I thought this passage very clever, since this is a novel and therefore Aiden could very simply have changed the plot to solve the problem. But I also like the sentiment, that life has to be lived and that the problems we face cannot be undone simply by erasing the path that was taken and conjuring up a new one.

“This brings me back to that endlessly puzzling, endlessly fascinating question: When I’m talking to myself, whom am I talking to and who is doing the talking? Are we all in fact two people, not one? Are we all One and Another? What I know is that I have an “everyday self” […] and an “inner self”, the one I think go as my real self, the self who observes everything my everyday self does, comments and judges, praises and dispraises, considers what would be best to do and not to do, and assesses the results.”

I think I may have highlighted this one simply because that’s exactly how I think of myself, as two selves, and it’s reassuring to read that someone has had similar thoughts and therefore I am not mad!

“Sometimes the course of our lives depends on what we do or don’t do in a few second, a heartbeat, when we either seize the opportunity, or just miss it Miss the moment and you never get the chance again.”

Enough said.