Why do we keep reading a book when it makes us mad? Or sad? I have been reading the Game of Thrones series, by George R. R. Martin, and it is positively infuriating at times. Do you know how you feel when you just love a book and want to send a note of thanks or congratulations to the author? I feel the opposite. I want him to do some serious explaining as to what he was thinking when he decided the fates of these characters and send them off to the publisher. Really.
So why do I keep reading? I am three books in, (it's five books so far, each at about 900 pages) and in the middle of this last book, something finally very good was about to happen- and didn't. I was ready to throw in the towel; I just couldn't suffer with this anymore. My husband read the whole series, and thinks: "It's just not normal for a grown woman to be at the supermarket muttering about a science fiction novel." I have to explain- this series is epic in scope, but tragic, and like nothing you've ever read. The main characters (or those that you think of as main characters, and will carry through the whole series, die without warning. Nothing good happens in this book! So why do I keep reading?
Because, my friends, this is why we do read- if Romeo and Juliet went off to live in a cottage by the sea, would it endure? If Jean Val Jean became a baker and lived in Paris, we would have The Happies instead of The Miserables. We love epic tragedies. They are stories, they keep us turning the pages and to be able to suffer and feel, and then go out to mulch the garden, unharmed. We need vile, horrible villains, and tragedies of epic proportions. They make the story go. I will keep reading the Game of Thrones, and continue with book four, A Feast for Crows, after I take a break. For a book with happy ending.
