Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Stephen King, you wanker
If you think you may ever read Stephen King's Dark Tower Septology, do not continue reading this blog entry. I'll try hard not to give away key plot points, but it is those plot points which have spurred the emotion which led me to blog this evening. Once again, read ahead at your own risk.
My mother, somewhere in her journey through bookdom learned just how close to your heart a character, who exists solely in an author's imagination and in his/her words on a page, can grow. It was a painful lesson in that this particular character died on the very last page of the book. She was so marred by her love of the character and her disgust at the character's untimely death that she left the practice of reading the narrative from front to end and entered into the dangerous world of skipping ahead, if ever she found that she loved a character. I have never done this, and I do not intend to, but tonight I can understand why she would take action to keep herself from feeling that kind of pain. Two characters that I loved dearly died today. And within a hundred pages of each other. When the first one died, or rather when the character received its fatal blow, i put the book down and walked away to mourn. I was confused and unbelieving. I waited a few hours and picked the story up again and mourned with the rest of the characters on the deathbed. I bid the character goodbye. And I stayed with everyone as they moved on. And then another died. And not a character I could have bared to see die, but the unbearable. I'm not prepared to give up on the book, because like the main character, I'm come too far and given up too much to quit now. From when I began reading this series in summer of 2000, from nigh page one, I have longed to see the tower and with all that I have left behind, I will tread onward.
The great evil in all this, however, is how much the writer tries to incorporate "fate" into this story. So much so that he even seems to indicate that he couldn't help killing off the characters that had to die, because some "greater force" was leading him to do so. And as much as that may be true, Mr. King, it was no fictitious character that brought about the death of these who have passed on. Please know, Mr. King, that their deaths are on your head. I suffer you know mercy from that. You must bear the guilt. You, dear writer, are a wanker.
Edit: From Peter Jackson's Two Towers: "It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something -- that there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.
touchè, Mr. King. But I still can't believe you did that.
My mother, somewhere in her journey through bookdom learned just how close to your heart a character, who exists solely in an author's imagination and in his/her words on a page, can grow. It was a painful lesson in that this particular character died on the very last page of the book. She was so marred by her love of the character and her disgust at the character's untimely death that she left the practice of reading the narrative from front to end and entered into the dangerous world of skipping ahead, if ever she found that she loved a character. I have never done this, and I do not intend to, but tonight I can understand why she would take action to keep herself from feeling that kind of pain. Two characters that I loved dearly died today. And within a hundred pages of each other. When the first one died, or rather when the character received its fatal blow, i put the book down and walked away to mourn. I was confused and unbelieving. I waited a few hours and picked the story up again and mourned with the rest of the characters on the deathbed. I bid the character goodbye. And I stayed with everyone as they moved on. And then another died. And not a character I could have bared to see die, but the unbearable. I'm not prepared to give up on the book, because like the main character, I'm come too far and given up too much to quit now. From when I began reading this series in summer of 2000, from nigh page one, I have longed to see the tower and with all that I have left behind, I will tread onward.
The great evil in all this, however, is how much the writer tries to incorporate "fate" into this story. So much so that he even seems to indicate that he couldn't help killing off the characters that had to die, because some "greater force" was leading him to do so. And as much as that may be true, Mr. King, it was no fictitious character that brought about the death of these who have passed on. Please know, Mr. King, that their deaths are on your head. I suffer you know mercy from that. You must bear the guilt. You, dear writer, are a wanker.
Edit: From Peter Jackson's Two Towers: "It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something -- that there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.
touchè, Mr. King. But I still can't believe you did that.
Monday, February 21, 2005
I guess that's why they call it "the blues"
Okay, so, I am a boy and so when valentine's day rolls around and I don't have anyone, I don't really care. I congratulate myself on not having to spend exorbitant amounts of money to prove that I love someone and go about with my day as usual. Things were no different this year. This brings me to roughly one week later when I get back into town and realize that every girl I know who is single is not only really bummed about no one treating them special on the one special day, but also being very verbal about it. Not a problem, it's all good. Better to let it out that hold it all in. But it gets me to realizing how much I really wish i wasn't single. And even though valentine's day slipped by me this year completely unnoticed, i find myself thinking a lot about the fairer sex, missed opportunities, girls I know that could be potential girlfriends/something more down the line, and hoping and praying that I'll find HER soon. The funny part is that besides the whole "mission rules" and everything...and the fact that I don't have the time to keep up a healthy relationship, I am a chicken turd. Rejection is probably my greatest fear. I mean, send me lions, tigers, men with machetes, long mountainous climbs, but please don't put me in a situation where I have to figure out where to sit. I seriously have major anxiety everytime I go to church because I don't know if the people I want to sit next to want to sit next to me. It's a bit silly, but if I were to genuinely like someone and find out that they would have prefered for someone else to sit next to them, ...i don't know what I would do, but I'd probably be depressed for a good week, assuming something happened all week to cheer me up. So, this is just finding a seat in church and has nothing to do with girls. So if there's a girl who I think is pretty cool and I want to get to know her better, I try to find an opportunity to talk to her or something, but usually I have absolutely nothing to say. So I just don't go talk to her. I suffer through small pleasantries and then ashamedly wander off when I can't think of anything worthwhile to say. So, on that note, I'm going out for coffee with a friend of mine who lived in Nicaragua last year and taught at the school. I haven't seen her in a while, so I think we'll have a lot to talk about...and if not, I'll just wander off.
