A good story

 

Subject: A good story.

Do you enjoy reading for the story or for the way it's written. Reading a book when written by a talented author, even a paragraph can give pause for reflection. The way the story or character seem plucked out of ones own life or at least the dreams you once had, makes ones antennae ping with energy at the realisation you were not alone. The subtlety of the characters, their moods and observations, the tangents of thought with your own make the book a personal read and it's this acceptance of your reality in the book that let's you enjoy it, page by page, line by line, word by word. The mystery of this mental experience, for this is what it is, makes, every so often, your putting the book aside for a moment (as I am doing now) to explore what you have just found out in the book by writing, in your own words and clumsy syntax your own memory. It's another way of exploring life and it's hard edges and helps you to formulate, who you think you are through that mental reassembly of the past and your part in it.

Picking up the book again one soon becomes reengaged in another ride into that smokescreen good writers use to catch our attention. The scenic views, the intrigue, the hopes and fears in our own lives are there (otherwise we wouldn't engage in the first place) and it's exciting to contemplate how the author will distribute these deficiencies as the plot unfurls.

There is an unmistakable rhythm to a well told story, like the audible clickty-clack of a train passed over the expansion joints in the railway line on a long journey broken only when the soothing regularity of sound gave way to a discordant clatter as the train gets close to its destination and passes over the points. Your journey soon over you stand to reach for your luggage and as with the book, it's a moment to reflect on what's ahead as much as what you've left behind.

Sent from my iPad