tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2016855771148413935.post2736561519436013188..comments2023-09-30T02:45:56.254-07:00Comments on Shauna’s Made Up Stuff: Shhh.... Don't tellShaunaKelleyWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04654367734305011629noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2016855771148413935.post-43144586778064413812010-04-14T01:09:56.091-07:002010-04-14T01:09:56.091-07:00Tragedy, and to a lesser extent comedy, are used a...Tragedy, and to a lesser extent comedy, are used as literary love tools in literature (and film), because that's what we want. We want to suffer that loss in a way that, if it's well written, we can feel down to the very depths of who we are knowing full well that we can close the book and it will not be real. We want to feel the pain of loss without having to wake up without him (or her). The books that touch us most deeply, that stay with us, are the ones that make us feel with the most intensity. What good is a book about love if we can't feel it? Like you said, describing two people sitting on a couch watching TV, while they may be able to feel the love, I can't. <br /><br />Two things you absolutely MUST read: <br /><br />The first is Milan Kundera's 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'. It is one of my very favourite books. No great tragedy, no great comedy. Just love and lust in real (fictional) life. A line you might find particularly pointed given this discussion (the commentary in this situation is on the composition of life): "It is wrong, then, to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences (like the meeting of Anna, Vronsky, the railway station, and death or the meeting of Beethoven, Tomas, Tereza, and the cognac), but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives him life of a dimension of beauty."<br /><br />The second is the chapter entitled "This is Emo 0:01" from Chuck Klosterman's book 'Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs'. It starts with the line "No woman will ever satisfy me." It's an essay on how movies like 'Say Anything' have completely fucked up an entire generation (and now their spawn) by creating a world where love is either Sparks-ian or doomed to failure and therefore we all expect some impossible ideal of what love is "supposed to be" without ever really being okay with what love actually is. I think I have a copy in my email somewhere. I'll see if I can find it for you.wegrithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05026547003132164134noreply@blogger.com