While reading the phenomenal book, 'The Green Mile', it home how much I enjoy dark stories. I'm not saying I'm into horror because I'm not usually, but tales that tend to have unhappy endings, mean characters and cynicism catch my eyes more than most. Hell, the blurb of 'Child 44' grabbed me right away and that book is bloody gruesome sometimes, and incredibly eye-opening into what life may have been like for some during Stalin's reign of terror in Soviet Russia. If a book features a story that seeks to tear the characters' hearts to pieces, I'm interested. I like happy endings too, but unhappy ones are far more interesting. Maybe it's because they relate to the dark world we live in. Maybe.
We Are Human
We are selfish based creatures crawling on this earth. But because we have brains we aspire to achieve something that is less than pure evil.
Dr House put this brilliantly in the House episode, 'One Day, One Room'. Books have that ability to create characters that may or not be that believable on the surface. but when you come to know them they are indeed very human. 'City of Bones' did this with the Shadowhunters, especially Jace. Just walk around town and think about everybody you see, they all have a story, they all live with some kind of tragedy, harbour dreams and labour painful feelings toward something or somebody. We are all human, and some might call that a blessing or a curse. I don't know which is true just yet. I guess they're both right. Dark stories also open our eyes to things we might miss or deliver new things that make us interested. John Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath' is all about the dust bowl storms in Oklahoma and the struggles the Joad family face as they travel to California. You get the sense of poverty, not just money but a poverty of the.... what did Martin Luther King call it? A poverty of the spirit. During some parts of 'The Grapes of Wrath', fellow brothers and sisters fight over fallen fruit so they can get the most bucks at work. The government uses backward laws with settlers at camps and in the end, it's up the Joad's good nature with fellow human beings to survive the Great Depression. The Joads are good people, but for as many good people there are in the world, there are bad people. I need to read 'The Grapes of Wrath' again. Hopefully I'll appreciate it more second time through.
Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' is the darkest story I've read. There is no hope in burned America and there are plenty bad people in the book. Not only that, but the world itself has given up the ghost and all that's left is a blackened planet rotting to the core. No plant-life, trees are falling and random earthquakes rattle the planet's aching joints. I tore through the book in about three days (because I wanted it to last) and by the end, I felt like I had read the bleakest story ever told. Nothing's beaten it yet. 'The Green Mile' came close, though. 'The Road' reminds me of an Ernest Hemmingway quote.
Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' is the darkest story I've read. There is no hope in burned America and there are plenty bad people in the book. Not only that, but the world itself has given up the ghost and all that's left is a blackened planet rotting to the core. No plant-life, trees are falling and random earthquakes rattle the planet's aching joints. I tore through the book in about three days (because I wanted it to last) and by the end, I felt like I had read the bleakest story ever told. Nothing's beaten it yet. 'The Green Mile' came close, though. 'The Road' reminds me of an Ernest Hemmingway quote.
The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.
Much like if it's a blessing or a curse to be human, you could argue that the world isn't a fine place at all nor is it worth fighting for. I think the world is a beautiful place, but it's us that ruin it from time to time. All you've got to do is check out BBC or CNN for world news and you've got the proof you need. It's us. Sometimes I yearn for the day when we can live in space.
Long Forgotten Sons
Stories don't have to involve death and destruction for my enjoyment. I'll try anything, but more often than not it's the stories that bring up enormous questions that I like the most. Stories that make you question your own humanity, what our purpose is, what we should strive for, the people in our life we should pay more attention to and just trying to really take advantage of the fact that are alive. I'm not the best example of somebody who takes every day by the scruff of the neck and live the hell out of it, but it's something I'd like to be able to do. Small steps work best I find. Do small things you wouldn't ordinarily do perhaps. Run for the sunset, lay on the grass for no reason, admire trees or for one day try and love yourself. None of those are easy, and I'm not saying you need to be a hippy to be happy. Just be human. Despite all of that and my own advice, I still love reading miserable tales. It's not all I read, but I like them. And if people think you're crazy for chasing the sun as it falls for the horizon, say 'yes, yes we are. Because we're human.'
Songs of the Week:
Songs of the Week:
- 'Black' by Pete Yorn
- 'Simonize' by Pete Yorn
- 'Life on a Chain' by Pete Yorn
- 'On Your Side' by Pete Yorn
- 'For Nancy ('Cos it Already is' by Pete Yorn
- 'Closet' by Pete Yorn
- 'Sleep Better' by Pete Yorn
- 'Ez' by Pete Yorn
- 'Just Another' by Pete Yorn
- 'Scene of the Crime' by Lazlo Bane
- 'Superman' by Lazlo Bane
- 'Gold Miner Dream' by Lazlo Bane
- 'The Ghost of Tom Joad' by Rise Against
- 'The Ballad of Hollis Brown' by Rise Against