Stories

I get completely wrapped up in stories. Good ones, in particular. And when I say "good" I mean "effective," because the goal of a story is to get the receiver of that story to understand something, which often means that the receiver has to put his or herself into the story to properly understand what the storyteller is trying to communicate.

Currently, the book form of stories is what is forefront on my mind, but another good example is movies. And that's one of the reasons I'm so selective about what I watch. Because while I'm sitting there watching that movie, it's essentially real for me. At least, I feel like it's real. Mentally, I can distinguish(usually), but it's hard for my head to convince my racing heart and soaring emotions that what I am seeing isn't really happening, that there's no real reason for the tears streaming down my face. I mean, just a few months ago, I cried while watching Bolt. Yes, Bolt, the Disney movie. And I'm sure my face looked ridiculous. I remember sitting there thinking about it at the time; 1.) I felt great, intense sadness at Bolt's feelings of rejection and abandonment and also at Penny's despair that her best friend was gone, 2.) the sadness all around was completely unnecessary, so I was frustrated, wishing that I could clue both of them in and fix the problems, and 3.) I was studying my emotions and the whole situation as it was happening, and marveling at how involved I was and realizing that my emotions must be evident on my face and I felt the need to laugh at myself. So there I was, sad, frustrated, and wanting to chuckle, with my mouth twisting between a frown and a smile, my throat trying to gasp out a sob and a giggle at the same time, my eyes wanting to dance and resemble that of a sad puppy all at once.

Bolt is not what prompted this post, though. I am in the middle of rereading the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I started in on the second book, New Moon, last night and finished it today. That is the most depressing book I have ever read, and for some reason I insisted on reading it a second time. And I imagine I'll read it again, many more times. Getting back to the point though, when I say it's depressing, it really is depressing. Last night, when I got to the infamous third chapter, I bawled as my eyes were moving across the pages, so hard that I was actually gasping for air. And through the majority of the book, as Bella was feeling empty and numb, so was I. Both times I have read that book I have plowed through it. It's so painful that a part of me doesn't want to, but I have to get out of that despair as quickly as possible, so I force myself to go on. This series seems to be particularly prone to dragging me in because of Bella, the main character and one narrating the story. I understand her so well. It's like I'm in her head.

While part of me wants to roll my eyes and laugh at myself like I did during Bolt, the other part of me says, "Don't be so silly. That's what stories are for." And I really believe that. That's a big part of the reason I'm an English major, because I feel passionately that literature has great value. And I want to stand up and fight for it when I hear people passing it up as something trivial. Particularly "kids' stories." The value of a fairy tale seems to have been lost by the world. It's just something to be used to keep a child entertained and then at some point you have to grow up and move on. *sigh*

I really need to research this topic more, the value of literature, and more completely form my thoughts and opinions. I imagine being an English major will help in that area, but I intend to do research on my own, too. I'm sure there are so many things that I've never even considered.

In the meantime, I'm going to finish the next two books in the Twlight series. I would start tonight, but I don't actually own the second and third books. I borrowed the second from a friend and I'm probably going to return it and get the next one from her soon. Unless I can get my hands on a copy of the third one sooner. I'll still return her book of course. I just won't borrow the next one. Which I'm sure you surmised, but my sentence wasn't clear on that point, and I feel the need to explain everything. As evidenced by the fact that I just explained my need to explain things.

I'm going to stop now, before I detract too much from the point of this post, which I fear I may have aleady done....