Other people's writings

I love reading, but sometimes reading doesn't love me. When things are really bad, I lose the ability to read and then I miss reading so much that I try hard to regain it. And so for a while now I have stuck with books that are easy to read, meaning that there's a story that's more gripping than the effort it costs to read. 

I also should say that normally I'm absolutely loath not to finish a book that I've started: experience states that pretty much every book has a redeeming feature, with the exception of "A Winter's Tale", which was so bad that I reckon it was written by a computer. But in recent times I have increasingly found myself abandoning books that require some kind of mental effort to read, an admission that leaves me feeling shamed. A poor state of affairs.

In the course of the last year I have burnt through all of the "Myron Bolitar" books by Harlan Coben, stories that are easy and fun to read, and cost little mental effort. Last week I read his book, "Gone for Good". On the one hand this novel fits the mould perfectly, but on the other it dealt with a character who had lost someone close to them. Although the book was easy to read, I found myself torn between the excitement of the story and the pain expressed by the lead character. At one point, while thinking about the partner he has lost, he says: "I felt hollow. My insides had been scooped out, and again I was struck with the realization that this pain would be permanent, that I could stall, that I could run around and investigate and dig for some inner truth, but in the end, it would change nothing. My grief would forever be by my side, my constant companion in lieu of ...".

Then again, another character talking about loss: "You can try to move past the pain. You can try to forget and get on with your life. But for [us] forgetting would be too obscene. We couldn't betray [our daughter] like that. The pain may be enormous but how could we go on if we abandoned [her]? She existed. She was real."

Although stated by fictional characters in a novel, feelings like these are impossible to cast as fiction. In fact the latter idea, the idea that moving on is forgetting, is something that hadn't occurred to me so far. But I instantly realized the truth of it. The process of dealing with grief feels like it requires one to forget. For example, I'm most "stable" when I'm busy with work and least stable when my mind has the 'space' to roam. Thus, in effect work is less painful because it involves the least risk of remembrance, ie forgetting is easier. 

Harlan Coben novels are a kind of mental chewing-gum for me. But that is not to dismiss them. I have to say that the finesse with which he described grief in this book was truly amazing, but repelling to me at the same time. 

I guess that what I'm trying to say is that nothing about the process of grieving is simple or easy, that even when one tries to find some kind of mental oblivion in a book or film, life's realities, even fictional realities, have a habit of slapping you in the face.