Last night I finished A.M Homes Music for Torching which had the most harrowing ending, which lead me to thinking standing up in the kitchen, sipping Diet Coke, taking a break from interview preparation.
Yes, I did get an interview at the company to which I applied using that covering letter that I managed to lose. Which I didn't cry over and couldn't remember the last time I did. Now at this interview, they ask for stories, which I am chop full of but need to think of quick recall, which prompted the whole crying thing yet again.
I don't know if I've even cried yet this year. Oh wait, I did during Marley & Me, but I was more concerned for Chris who was blubbering away (stiff upper lip my ass!). Music for Torching should have definitely prompted crying but it was too tragic, as I explained to Chris last night it's the William H. Macy of novels. But I would highly recommend it because it reads like a screenplay, or piece of theatre and is ominous being set in the present tense. Very eerie.
A book has never made me cry, certainly not as adult. I can't remember any as a child except for 'Where the Red Fern Grows' which my gr. 5 teacher read out loud to the class and even she cried. Evidently anything involving dogs dying prompts some emotional outburst. But seriously, I've read a fair share of depressing novels- John Updike's Rabbit Series (truth be told I've only read the first two but still...) but the only thing it caused was an argument with Chris regarding Rabbit's mistress who I felt the most sorry for and he disagreed. And far be it for me to disagree with a English Lit major from Oxford but still.
But to be fair to my tearless self whilst reading, I don't read books that perhaps touch women. I hate to use the term as it's rather derogatory but I don't read Chick Lit. In fact my taste in literature is rather masculine (stereotypically and/or typically). My favourite writer is Ernest Hemingway who is by far a man's man. I'm staring into our bookshelf for my next read. Petite error is A.M. Homes is a woman but the novel was omniscient therefore male perspectives are given as well as female, therefore I don't feel that it was entirely feminine.
I was going to read Sebasitan Faulks, Engleby next but I think I'll read Doris Lessing, the Cleft, which I think was her nobel prize winning novel. Not that I fear I'm becoming particularly brutish but I need something to pull my heartstrings, or at the very least touch my soul (in some Oprah kind of way, something to penetrate my icy exterior, does that work better?) and have it be something that isn't about a dying dog.
6 comments:
I'm surprised that as a fellow English major you never teared up over a novel! I don't read chick lit either, but I've been known to let our a sob or two. Although, in all fairness, if something explored in a book slightly resonates something I am upset about I'll start crying in the delusion that my situation and the plot line are remotely comparable.
I'm not a crier either. I can't remember the last time I cried because of something going on in my life- but that being said, books make me cry ALL THE GOD DAMN TIME.
I wasn't always this way but there have been quite a few over the last year that made me quite misty.
I completely understand what you're both saying but I just can't cry over books. Maybe crying is like memory, you can be a visual crier, audio-visual crier, photographic crier.
I know the 3 of us are big readers, but I'm growing concerned that I'm not diving deeply enough into a book to resonate emotion. Which book made you the most emotional (even if the plotline paralleled your life at the time...)?
Hahaha the book that made me most emotional was the final Harry Potter Hahaha. But I had SO much invested in the story.
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon also made me quite misty. I wish I could remember that one a bit better.
I hate to say this but you saying Harry Potter made me laugh. But if it's any consolation, I am genuinely scared when I watch the films. (afraid to say I've never read the books...).
And again, it comes down to not being able to muster up emotion reading, but by seeing a film.
I read Life of Pi a few months ago and maybe cried for a millisecond, I can't remember. I DO remember crying while reading the English Patient. You have my permission to laugh. Just note I did not cry, or particularly overly care, in the film version.
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