I should be asleep.
Jun. 8th, 2005 02:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
green_dreamsI cry at fiction. Not all the time--I'm guessing maybe twenty out of the ~1200 books I own can provoke the reaction--but I do. I've gotten the impression I do it more than other people.
Re: the last line of my last post; I relayed it as an observation to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theweaselking. He pointed out that with movies, the things you are crying about are ongoing, unstopping, and beyond your control. With a book, you can take a moment to put it down, get a grip on yourself, etcetera.
Why would you want to?
I mean, if you're crying or laughing or grinning maniacally and muttering something like Yes! when the bastard finally gets his due, isn't that what you came to the story *for*? It's moving, if you didn't want to be moved, you wouldn't've picked up the book and paid enough attention to give it a chance, right? I know there are some amazing writers out there, but I have yet to meet a book that actually picked you up and dragged you along if you didn't let it.
(Sidenote: also suspect am very good at letting books do this to me. It's a cooperative effort. My suspension of disbelief has been much exercised over the years.)
I am pretty sure I cry more over books than real life.
It's safe to cry over books. It feels, somehow, very rude to cry over people in real life.
I am not sure how I feel about this yet, which is why I'm talking about it to my wailing wall. ("Hello, wall. How're you doing?" "Hello, wailer. I'm still a metaphorical construct preserved in data format and subject to massive variations of superficial stylistic interpretation." "That's nice, wall. Prepare another area of read-only memory." "Certainly, wailer. I shall know it in my bones.")
Take, for example, the storytheweaselking linked to earlier today. Teenager told abortion will be hazardous to her health; attempts to induce miscarriage with help of boyfriend; succeeds; boyfriend convicted of murder (life sentance, parole possible after 40 years).
It is an understatement to say I find this upsetting.
The thought of crying over it seems essentially invasive. It feels too much like appropriating someone else's pain. Like donning full mourning and having hysterics at a funeral for someone I didn't know very well; I do not feel I have any right to behave that way, and the family would have a right to evict me. This is not mine, I cannot presume.
I think I feel that real pain, being composed of real life, is something I have no right to if it's not part of my life in some relevant sense. That to react without full understanding and knowledge would be to demean it.
This is starting to strike me as a rather stunted attitude. Then again, it's 3:22 a.m. Very few things strike me as healthy at 3:22 am.
Fiction is different. Fiction is there because someone wrote it for reading, and fiction is all there. The characters in fiction might slap you for daring to cry over their Aunt Millicent's funeral, but the fiction won't; the fiction is there to be read. And you have full understanding and knowledge, because all that's there is there, it's in the book for you. You have an informed opinion, an informed reaction, so you're allowed to react.
Where did I slip into using "you" rather than "I" on this?
...you know, this attitude probably has something to do with why I was so upset about watching Hard Core Logo. To immerse yourself in watching someone for a couple of hours, get a fairly solid picture of them, and then see them die and be stuck knowing that regardless of your image of them, you don't know them, you only know what you've been shown and so you feel no right to react to their death. Definite dissonance, there.
God, it's way too late.
Re: the last line of my last post; I relayed it as an observation to
theweaselking. He pointed out that with movies, the things you are crying about are ongoing, unstopping, and beyond your control. With a book, you can take a moment to put it down, get a grip on yourself, etcetera.Why would you want to?
I mean, if you're crying or laughing or grinning maniacally and muttering something like Yes! when the bastard finally gets his due, isn't that what you came to the story *for*? It's moving, if you didn't want to be moved, you wouldn't've picked up the book and paid enough attention to give it a chance, right? I know there are some amazing writers out there, but I have yet to meet a book that actually picked you up and dragged you along if you didn't let it.
(Sidenote: also suspect am very good at letting books do this to me. It's a cooperative effort. My suspension of disbelief has been much exercised over the years.)
I am pretty sure I cry more over books than real life.
It's safe to cry over books. It feels, somehow, very rude to cry over people in real life.
I am not sure how I feel about this yet, which is why I'm talking about it to my wailing wall. ("Hello, wall. How're you doing?" "Hello, wailer. I'm still a metaphorical construct preserved in data format and subject to massive variations of superficial stylistic interpretation." "That's nice, wall. Prepare another area of read-only memory." "Certainly, wailer. I shall know it in my bones.")
Take, for example, the story
theweaselking linked to earlier today. Teenager told abortion will be hazardous to her health; attempts to induce miscarriage with help of boyfriend; succeeds; boyfriend convicted of murder (life sentance, parole possible after 40 years).It is an understatement to say I find this upsetting.
The thought of crying over it seems essentially invasive. It feels too much like appropriating someone else's pain. Like donning full mourning and having hysterics at a funeral for someone I didn't know very well; I do not feel I have any right to behave that way, and the family would have a right to evict me. This is not mine, I cannot presume.
I think I feel that real pain, being composed of real life, is something I have no right to if it's not part of my life in some relevant sense. That to react without full understanding and knowledge would be to demean it.
This is starting to strike me as a rather stunted attitude. Then again, it's 3:22 a.m. Very few things strike me as healthy at 3:22 am.
Fiction is different. Fiction is there because someone wrote it for reading, and fiction is all there. The characters in fiction might slap you for daring to cry over their Aunt Millicent's funeral, but the fiction won't; the fiction is there to be read. And you have full understanding and knowledge, because all that's there is there, it's in the book for you. You have an informed opinion, an informed reaction, so you're allowed to react.
Where did I slip into using "you" rather than "I" on this?
...you know, this attitude probably has something to do with why I was so upset about watching Hard Core Logo. To immerse yourself in watching someone for a couple of hours, get a fairly solid picture of them, and then see them die and be stuck knowing that regardless of your image of them, you don't know them, you only know what you've been shown and so you feel no right to react to their death. Definite dissonance, there.
God, it's way too late.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-08 01:44 pm (UTC)Because, after all, Texas law so heavily restricts them that they're next to illegal and hugely expensive.
And he wasn't convicted of murder, he was convicted of causing a miscarriage, which carries a heavier sentence than murder. If he'd killed a man in a barfight he'd have gotten 10, maybe 15 years.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-08 05:36 pm (UTC)> that despite their legality she couldn't have one because there were no
> doctors who would perform the procedure for a price she could afford, in a
> place she could get to.
In addition to not being able to afford one, her doctor testified he told her it would be dangerous (http://www.news-journal.com/news/content/news/stories/2005/06/02/20050602LNJFetalDeaths.html;COXnetJSessionIDbuild78=Cnr9e2nh8TOzsj954xaCWqYAAUARVkljf1D9A5iOy3bC41UUTpcM!-1945125953?urac=n&urvf=11182520298580.683158821038634). It particularly upsets me, because it just... I don't know. Her reaction screams "scared kid" to me, and I'm wondering how common the belief that miscarriages are safer than abortions is. Because, y'know, miscarriages are natural, they just happen when you work (or jog) too hard. Abortions are what happen when a doctor does it.