I spend a startling amount of time crying.
I suppose it started when I was about eight, and came across my first introduction to Shakespeare, bound in the format of The Enchanted Island. It was Ian Serraillier's reimagining of King Lear that I first cried over. Devastated by the fact that he only realised the value of Coredia too late, so began a fairly vicious cycle of weeping over literature.
Since then I've cried over numerous sad endings including George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (Oh Maggie, Oh Tom!!); the tragic one-sided love of Dan in Jo's Boys, the final book in the Little Women series; and I still cry whenever I get to a specific point in Rilla of Ingleside (clearly the most superior of all of the Anne of Green Gables books), whether on public transport or in the comfort of my own home.
But these days Happy Ever Afters make me cry just as much as the Never Ever Afters.
The other day I found myself unashamedly moved by Mhairi McFarlane's newest novel Here's Looking At You. I don't know whether it was the fact that Anna, the main character, had been through so much that she truly deserved a decent HEA; that it was so deliciously written (which it definitely was - an utterly lush read!); or whether it was just that I've got soppy in my old age*.
Sometimes, I think it's nice to cry over happy endings. I find it moving when I'm reminded of the innate goodness of humankind ("the milk of human kindness", if you will), and I find it moving when it's proven that there are people who genuinely just try and do nice things for others.
It's probably why I watch The Ellen Show so much, even though I just sit there bawling my eyes out.
So all in all, I think that crying over books is pretty forgivable. Thoughts dear internet? And whilst you muse upon that, I leave you with a version of And So It Goes that never fails to get me all weepy...
*I'd like to point out that I'm only 25, but that seems incredibly old to my teenage, angsty, weepy self.
(Image by Alena Navarro-Whyte)
I know the exact moment in 'Rilla of Ingleside' that you're talking about.... I also weep like a little girl with a skinned knee. :p
ReplyDeleteSo so much! It's almost definitely my favourite of all the Anne books, though the end of Anne of the Island always pretty much destroys me. My heart breaks and mends simultaneously!!
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