Silly Thoughts On Books

I’ve been thinking a lot about reading lately. Books are fascinating and I don’t mean what it’s in them (which is fascinating sometimes, don’t get me wrong) but the whole concept of books. Books are the perfect metaphor for fate! We read a book and, if it’s a good one, we can’t wait to find out what happens. Or, sometimes, we get emotionally attached to the character or even the plot, wanting so badly for it be the story of our lives. What’s interesting is that we already have the ending. It’s right there in our hands, merely a some hundred pages next to the beginning. That’s a really weird concept to me. I’m reading a book right now and it’s broken up into three parts; I just ended the first part, which I absolutely loved and refuse to read on because if I don’t, the character is still in Italy. What’s funny is... this is sort of true. But it’s completely absurd at the same time. What a crazy concept, books and stories are. I mean, what happens in the end is going to happen no matter what we will the character to do; but also, as time goes on and as we, as readers, grow up, the stories are still the exact same. The only thing that is different is how we read them, what lessons we get from the book and where we happen to read it. Fate is in the story in that no matter what we do and no matter what the characters do, the story will still end the same way, and we know this... yet, we still mourn characters as if they were our best friends or wish that the world’s we read about are real or even apply what we learn from a book to our lives. This is not meant to undermine the value of a book or story or the act of reading itself. Au contraire my friend, this is amazing! Books are amazing. What a stable anchor in our lives, beautiful stories that never change, what comfort and escape these books give to us.