Personal confession: When I stop by the library these days, I head for the fiction shelf. Right away. Sometimes, I don’t even pause at the hardback fiction, but go at once to the paperbacks, the thrillers and historical romances that seem to be much of what I read nowadays for pleasure.
Hey, I’m not proud of it!
There was a time when I read the other stuff too — Tolstoi, Hemingway, Faulkner — and often loved it. Well, sometimes not so much, but at least I appreciated it.
Strangely enough though, recently things have changed. The fact is, I no longer read a book that might make me cry, or even tear up. Basically, I just don’t want to feel depressed when I put it down. Just one sentence (“The ultimate confrontation is devastating.”) in a recent rave review of a book by an outstanding writer of our time immediately persuaded me never to pick it up. In my lifetime.
Nowadays I need happy endings. Both in books and in real life.
I need to know that it’ll all turn out okay right for the Jane Austen heroine, for Harry Potter in the end, for the abusive robins on my back patio who scream and yell at me every time I open the back door, because they have built a nest on the light out there.
For life in general.
Of course, it doesn’t always. Jane Austen heroines are pretty safe, but Harry is a bit of a mixed bag, I’ve heard. (Nobody will tell me for sure.) And the robins’ predecessor last summer disappeared with all her babies over a single night.
I’m aware that needing happy endings makes me as shallow as all those blondes in the jokes and the celebrity news. Now, that hurts, because I don’t want to be shallow. (Not that these columns are noted for deep thoughts.)
In fact, I’ve caught myself, more than once, trying to save face with the librarian, as she impassively checks out my choices, “You know, I don’t know why I keep taking out all this trashy stuff, when I have a dozen worthwhile books at home that I really want to read.”
Having heard all this from me before, she doesn’t miss a beat. “Here we call it light reading,” she says, absolving me from my sins without even requiring penance for them. The perfect librarian.
Also, she is an enabler. If only she would say, “Maude, I’m ashamed of you. I believe you have the brains not only to read but to enjoy real literature. The kind of literature that reflects the world we live in and the problems that we face as human beings. The kind of literature you should want to read because it helps you to understand how things got the way they are, and what we can do about them. Furthermore, a beautifully written book should be reward enough in itself. Therefore, I recommend to you, Such, and Such, and Such ... .”
Of course, I might punch her if she tried it, but anyway — she never does. Shame on her! It’s all her fault!
I’ve tried to figure out how I got into such a fix, and I think this is it:
You get old.
The truth is, I’ve already read about most of the stupidities and the tragedies this world is capable of at its worst. For 60 years I’ve read two newspapers a day and several weekly newsmagazines. I have been blessed in my life, but nevertheless, like both of you, I have lost very dear and cherished people.
As a pastor’s wife, I’ve witnessed at least second-hand just about all the different ways people can mess up their lives or have them messed up for them. Over and over again.
So to tell the truth, at this point, I simply don’t need to import any more downers into my existence. (Unless, of course, they are absolutely necessary, and, yes, sometimes they are.)
?Embarrassing as it is to admit, I will continue to go mostly for the happy endings, whether in real life or whether I just read about them.
I do solemnly promise, however: 1. One of these days I’m going to read the last Harry Potter book, just to find out how it really ends. Oh yes, and 2. I promise not to blame the librarian for my own guilty conscience.
Maude McDaniel is a Cumberland freelance writer. Her column appears on alternate Sundays in the Times-News.
Maude McDaniel - Living
Enough of reality: Let’s go for happy endings
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