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"Art is the nearest thing to life;
it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellow-men beyond the bounds of our personal lot.”
-George Elliot
Our life consists of dateless moments between the cry of our birth, which we do not hear,
and the rattle of our death, which escapes us even as we lose our fragile grasp on awareness.
Awareness --
We do not fully possess it in our own life and only delude ourselves in thinking we possess it concerning the lives of others.
Everyone dies but does everyone live?
Take a diary -- Samuel Pepys or your own.
Once a life is contained, condensed, and compressed in the slim pages of a diary, it seems smaller somehow.
But, of course, it is not.
Not anymore than a painting of the ocean shrinks it.
In reality, the sea still stretches from horizon to horizon.
The events of life give birth to the question WHY? but does death kill all the answers to it?
Each of us must answer that last question for him or herself.
Strange is it not that the question WHY? follows us all the days and passages of our lives?
We never do seem to get an adequate answer to the most important times we ask it.
Take ...
"Why are we here?"
You must answer that for yourself, of course. But novels help us search out the answer.
Books are safety-deposit boxes for
human awareness,
like urns that contain words not ashes.
Those books that shine a light for you in the darkness of your questions
become "classics" though that term is over-used these days.
The real, in fiction, is always a matter of belief
- it is up to us as readers to validate and confirm.
It is a belief that is requested, and that we can refuse at any time.
Novels let us see the world and our place in it in ways no other medium allows.
Movies tell us what to believe. Novels make us do the heavy lifting ourselves --
And we grow stronger because of it.
“The great secret of morals is love;
or a going out of our nature,
and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own.”
- Shelly
Again:
Does everyone live?
Look at the headlines. Is there much self-awareness you see in the angry eyes of protesters the world over?
What do you think?
With novels, we have to see it with our mind's eye.
ReplyDeleteSadly I think there are a lot of people who never really live.
Novels are theaters of the mind, you're right. :-) And yes, I fear many people merely exist not live. :-(
DeleteFor too many people life is a struggle just to stay alive, have a roof over their head, enough for their family. The stories we tell ourselves and others can be illuminating, but some people don't want to let the light in on their lives.
ReplyDeleteSadly, you are right: life for too many is a dog eat dog world -- where the only thing you win is one more day to exist.
DeleteBut the right poem or fitting short story can uplift the most bruised of spirits if it but makes that person feel not quite so alone.
Thanks for the insightful comment. :-)