Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darlings!   For today’s post, I have decided to discuss a tradition that I have had for many years around my birthday.    As tomorrow is my birthday, I wanted to write about this today.    I always re-read at least one of my favorite works of classic literature around my birthday!   I am a huge lover of classical literature, especially Gothic Romance literature, a fact of which I am sure regular readers here will be well aware.

Because of that fact, I always re-read either Wuthering Heights or The Phantom of the Opera around my birthday.   Oftentimes, I end up reading both!   I do this re-reading of a favorite novel that has been beloved to me since I was very young because I can always gain new insights from my favorites as time goes on.   Each new year we gain insights and experiences that shape who we are at this point in our lives.   Of course, I also do this because there is something very soothing and cozy about reading a book you love and knowing where each story beat will take you!    

So each year when I re-read one of my two favorite novels, I get to re-examine how my life has changed and evolved since the last time I had read that book.   I also get to re-examine the book itself and what it means to be in this new year of my life that is just beginning.    Classic novels often have layers of complexity that are rife for interpretation, which helps lend an air of depth to reading them multiple times.   These two books that hold such a special place in my heart both feature male ‘villains’ who are much more beloved to audiences than the supposed ‘hero’ type of character featured in the text.   I love both of these villains, as well as the lead female characters of the novels.   While Catherine Earnshaw of Wuthering Heights is in herself a rather unlikeable character, I still adore her for being the figure that she is.   At the end of the day, she is a character who went after what she wanted and made terrible choices, but for reasons that seemed valid to her at the time.    She and Heathcliff, while damaged and often seen as cruel, are actually a good love match, after all, both of them cared more for one another than for anyone else around them!   I am even one of the hopeless romantics who view the end of the novel as happy because while Catherine and Heathcliff could never make their relationship work in life, they were finally able to be together in death.    Honestly, haunting the Moors with my Soulmate does not seem like such a bad afterlife, as long as we are together!

When it comes to Christine Daae in The Phantom of the Opera, we get a more traditional female Gothic Romance protagonist, who begins the tale as a relatively innocent and naive maiden.    She differs from a traditional female protagonist of her day in the fact that she has dreams for herself other than simply falling in love, although she does have a romance with Raoul (who everyone hates, to be honest).   She dreams of being a great singer, of reaching acclaim at the Opera, which is where the Phantom, Erik, comes into play as her ‘Angel of Music’ that teaches her the skills she needs.    I will admit, I am one of those people that always wanted Christine and Erik to end up together, and I still do!   I know that many people view wanting the lead to end up with a murderer as crazy, and maybe it is, but it is also part of evolutionary psychology.   We desire dangerous people (or fictional characters) because of those anti-social characteristics within them, so long as they are not being used against us, those dangerous tendencies can protect us!   If someone is capable of killing, they are capable of defending us and our families.   That is largely why we love the villain!

In the case of both books, the themes explored within, and the tale of the female protagonists, end up meaning something slightly different to me on each re-read.   This forms a great ritual to think over how far I have come in the year that has ended and how far I still desire to go in the year that is coming!    To be honest, this post exemplifies how re-reading these books and re-examining the themes and my relationship to them helps me to better understand myself.   I hope you have enjoyed reading some of my thoughts on why I love to re-read beloved classics around my birthday.   What are some of your birthday rituals and traditions?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image that I placed at the top of this post is a series of photos of me from Halloween of 2020 when I dressed as the Ghost of Catherine Earnshaw!   It was a bright spot in that atrocious year, as it was super fun embodying a favorite character from a favorite novel.   I hope you enjoy this little throwback photo, as I feel it embodies the energy of this post.  

Tarot Note: I have a page offering tarot and oracle readings for those interested in these services!    I am very happy to be offering these readings to my treasured readers at White Rose of Avalon!  Link to page: https://whiteroseofavalon.life/tarot-and-oracle-readings/

Further Reading

• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
• The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Another beloved classic author that I usually read tales and poems of his all throughout the spooky season.   I did not include him in the main post, as I was focusing on novels only.)