i've read a lot of really good books. i've enjoyed a whole ton of books that weren't even all that good. and i've figured out why some books are just superior. why some books stand above the rest. why i'd read some of them over and over again... at least i've figured it out for me. but i can tell you what it comes down to.
it's pretty much about the characters really.
and the questions that they make me ask about myself, and the things that i'm inspired to want for myself and for the people i love, and the dreams they make me dream.
could i do what that character did?...that's who i want to be...that's what i want to do...that is the kind of person i hope i am...that is something i didn't know enough to believe in, to hope for, to try to find in my own life - but now i will, now i do...
i'm just stupid enough (in a good way?) to compare myself to the characters in the books that i end up loving the best. usually it's the heroes. sometimes it's the supporting cast, someone who is just solid, or loyal or has a big heart... someone who's strengths i just appreciate.
you might think it's a set up to failure, but it doesn't feel that way. i have a big imagination and maybe it's big enough to make characters real to me. and maybe it's where i find my examples of what the best of us can become. so maybe it's inspiration. i have been inspired to be a better person by characters in books. if i read fiction on this level all the time...might be i could sustain that kinda reaching and striving.
maybe i'm not that hero from that book, but reaching brings me closer. and striving extends the horizon. and hope is sort of a reason or a place or a feeling of something or somewhere better or more... you can survive without it, but you can't live.
don't i sound fuckin poetic.
btw. i'm reading a pretty special book right now - "Dream Wheels" by Richard Wagamese. (also wrote "Keeper 'N Me" - also brilliant and beautiful and amazing...)
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