("Aisyah",)
Masa aku baca "Aisyah", aku memang tak boleh nak letak buku ni. Sepanjang hidup aku yang singkat ni, aku assume buku tu tulisan Khadijah Hashim sebab aku rasa macam KH yang tulis. Tapi bila aku check balik KH punya biografi, tak ada plak buku tajuk ni. Heran. Oh well, aku baca masa darjah enam. I must have been dreaming it.
2. Elizabeth Bennet
("Pride & Prejudice", Jane Austen)
Orang kata the beauty of Lizzy is the fact that setiap wanita yang membaca P&P akan rasa ada kualiti Lizzy yang ada pada diri diorang. It's true. For me, aku suka the fact that Lizzy tak actually berfikir di luar kotak. Dia selalu make fun of her mum who keeps trying to find suitors for her and her sisters, but at the same time dia menghargai the tradition of her era. She has her views and question things but she's still a normal girl. Kebanyakan heroin novel yang aku cipta, aku sentiasa cuba maintain that main quality of Lizzy - yang berfikiran jauh tapi tak go against the norms and tradition, as in independent but not rebellious. She's not trying to change the world, she just wants to live in it in peace. I mean, a lot of women characters tries too hard to be free and doing things overdramatically and is always right. But Lizzy is human. She makes decision, she voices her opinion and she admits it when she's wrong. And that's what I love about her... (and of course what Mr. Darcy loved about her).
Oh, dan aku paling suka Jennifer Ehle's interpretation of Lizzy sebab that's how I interprete Lizzy. Keira Knightley's was okay, cuma her proportion is ridiculous for a girl living in the Regency Era. I hate the Bolly version with Aishwarya Rai the most and Gemma Arterton's version doesn't help anything.
3. Alice
("Alice in Wonderland", Lewis Carroll)
Hardly a heroine, but still... Wonderland is the realm of dream. It was written as a place you go while you were sleeping. That's the whole spiel and the reason why everything is so LSD-ed dan pelik. Aku bukan suka Alice sebab dia heroic or buat apa pun dalam AIW. Aku suka the fact that Alice seorang yang curious dan sentiasa ingin tahu (hence the trademark "Curiouser and curiouser"). Aku seorang yang curious- which makes me bad at math because nobody pernah boleh explain pada aku why a formula is a formula. Jadi aku sangat suka Alice in that sense. She's curious and ridiculous - which is how I would love to describe myself. Akaka.
4. Scarlett O'Hara
("Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell)
A belle and a bitch - that's how I would describe her. Scarlett tak ada bezanya macam bos perempuan yang menyakitkan hati korang sebab kedekut tapi demand a lot, flirtatious dan sangat workaholic. Setiap perkara yang Scarlett buat ada sebabnya, even after marrying Rhett. A bit Machiavellian sebenarnya, but still, aku rasa watak Scarlett memang a breathe of fresh air sebab I think she is the very first character yang aku suka dan aku benci dalam masa yang sama. You applaud her survival instinct but you're horrified at the extent of things she would do to survive. She's proud, stubborn, opinionated and doesn't care.
5. Anne Shirley
("Anne of Green Gables", L.M. Montgomery)
Aku start liking AOGG through the Canadian TV series in the 80s, played by Megan Follows. Then aku start baca buku2 LM Montgomery. She's an icon for girls everywhere. What I love about Anne is the fact that she has a large scope of imagination. Nothing is truer when she said, somewhere along the line of "I pity the rich, because you can have everything that you have no scope of imagination". Imagination comes from the nothing. Anda tak bermimpi untuk one day boleh mandi dalam swimming pool all day long when you already have that in your house. Anda tak bermimpi tentang pakaian yang mahal dan majlis yang mewah bila anda boleh attend those things and wear those clothes bila2 saja. Anne Shirley's dream was to become a writer. As a girl growing up desiring to be a novelist, I can relate to her. Even bila dia akhirnya berjaya jadi novelist, I still can relate to her.
6. Judy Abbott
("Daddy Long Legs", Jean Webster)
Sebenarnya Judy Abbott pun tak banyak beza dengan Anne. Aku suka Anne, Judy dan Jo March for the exact same reason - that they all wanted to become a writer, and each and every one of them went through different kinds of hardships to get to where they are. For Anne, it's rejection. For Judy, it's her life as an orphan. For Jo, it's the hardships of the Civil War. For me, it's to convince that a story doesn't need a formula to work, it needs honesty.
7. Josephine 'Jo' March
("Little Women", Louisa May Alcott)
Like Judy and Anne, aku sukakan watak ni sebab she has a dream to become a writer. Suatu masa dulu, aku pernah terfikir, kalau aku nak menulis, aku nak guna pen name "JoAnne Shai Laden" - as a tribute to Jo March from "Little Women" dan "Anne" of the "Anne of Green Gables". Poyo tak? Wakakakaka. Aku suka Jo sebab aku rasa aku dengan dia banyak persamaan. We're both second child. We're both stubborn. My dad always let me do stuff he won't let my sister do because he thinks I have that boyish side to me, just like Jo. We're both clumsy and opinionated. We both have bad temper and both of us are not interested in the typical "schoolgirl crush" and have this thing about older intelligent men. Hahahahaha.
8. Irene Adler
("Sherlock Holmes", Arthur Conan Doyle)
Although I hate how Irene was portrayed in the SHERLOCK HOLMES movie, aku still suka the actual Irene Adler as Arthur Conan Doyle wrote it in "A Scandal in Bohemia". Irene as Doyle created sangat feminine tapi sangat cunning. I mean, as the only woman Holmes thought of as worthy of his greatness. I hate it when a feminine character uses her sex appeal to get ahead. But Irene does it in the most ladylike manner, I just couldn't hate her.
