Everything has meaning
Tyler Anderson Bailey, a Troy University music industry major from Wetumpka, Alabama, had a tough time picking just one book that has changed his life, he chose three. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, a story about unrequited love, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, a story of an outsider and Maus by Art Spiegelman, which is about the holocaust in a graphic novel form.
“It really helped me understand what other people go through and how it feels like nobody’s understanding him and I felt like nobody was understanding me,” said Bailey. “It helped me figure out what I wanted to be and where I wanted to go.” Â
“There are interesting things in everyone,” Bailey said when he was asked what he learned from Rostand’s play. Cyrano de Bergerac, a play by Edmond Rostand helped Bailey figure out how to open with people and be more of a social person and what to respect in relationships, not only romantic relationships, but also friendships. Bailey really identifies with the main character of the play, which what helped draw him into the story.
Bailey was assigned to read all three of these books for different classes while in high school at St. James in Montgomery, Alabama. His teacher of those classes made them interested in them and Bailey wished to learn more about them. The teacher’s passion of books influenced Bailey’s love for books.
“Catcher in the Rye helped me move on from being a child,” Bailey said. The novel helped him move on and get through the transition moments in Bailey’s life. The relationship with the siblings in the novel changed how he viewed his relationship with his own siblings.
“You can get a really interesting life story out of any book for anything,” Bailey said. Maus was proof to this. That you can make any medium of a story have a deep meaning. Maus, about the Holocaust, is proof to this. Something can be learned from anything.
