Monday, May 17, 2010

Will Grayson Spoiler Alert!

There is always something to be said for trying new things. The ability to try new things, the openness to new experiences, is something I value in others and strive for in myself. However, there are some times when I crave the familiar. It doesn't matter how many times I find a new exciting recipe and get all a-twitter about a new vichyssoise (with zucchinie?!?!?) or exciting new bread-making techniques, I will still have days when I just want Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

It was only yesterday that I found myself having the same experience with books. I was having a not-so-marvelous night, and I decided to hole up in my room to read. As I scanned my truly monstrous to-read pile/shelves of books, I quite literally put my hands on my hips and said out loud, "I need comfort food." It took me a second to look, and then I pulled Sabriel by Garth Nix off my shelf (a childhood favorite). I decided to skip all the exposition and go right for the best part. Chapter 11 is really when it gets crazy: crashing paperwings, cats that aren't cats, princes that aren't princes that are really made out of wood, etc. I sat myself down and read until there was no more to read. The lovers had kissed, the wounds had been tended, and the evil Kerigor was vanquished. Wonderful!

It was today, with more time to read, that I had the option of reading the follow up novel -Lirael- or picking up something new instead. As satisfying as Garth Nix's novels are, and always will be, they're predictable. Those books will never be quite as magical as they were the first time I read them. Don't get me wrong, there is a time and place for predictable endings. Sometimes I watch Pride and Prejudice because I go into it knowing the Darcy and Bingley and the Misses Bennett will figure it all out in the end. Our own lives can never be like that, so we can gain comfort in a certain amount of the known fates of fictional friends. I get that.

There comes a point, though, when relying on the security of other people's happy endings is just a crutch. There comes a time when we need to take a risk, meet new people, try a new genre and go into a book NOT knowing.

The book I read today, Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan, did have a happy ending. In fact, it had one of the happiest endings I've ever read, but this was not a comfortable book to read. Not. Comfortable. At all. Not because it was largely about men, several of them gay, but because (more than in many books I read) I saw a lot of myself reflected in the characters. It was because of that discomfort -and believe me, I know how cheesy this sounds even as I write it - that this book affected me so much. The 'not-knowing' was pivotal to my reading of this book, as was my apparent (yet disturbing) empathy with Midwestern gay teenagers.

I think in literature, as much as in life, that a reliance on what is known and expected is a kind of emotional laziness, maybe even addiction. Like those women who read romance novels by the pound and can't even remember which ones they've already read. No one wants to turn into that. It can seem to give comfort, but is ultimately a weakness if used too often.

Anyway, all philosophizing aside, both of the above-mentioned books are fabulous, and if you haven't read them, please do, and the moral of this rant is: next time you're craving mac'n cheese, try the vichyssoise instead.

My name is not Will Grayson, but I appreciate you, Tiny Cooper.