Story Lover

by Meg Rosoff

Why are there so many different covers? There are actually a few other versions of this cover. I like the typeface of the right cover and the color of the left one. The inner coloring of typeface makes me think that it could have been different. Maybe like how our lives could have been.

Man, her books are so haunting. Her characters are always cracked, yet beautiful. I didn’t realize that I didn’t know the protagonist’s name till page 184. How is that possible? His identity was all wrapped up in how he saw the world with one exception, Finn. And he was always trying to figure out how Finn saw him.

I think we can all relate to the yearning to be what we aren’t. To have the qualities that we idolize in those we’re drawn to. And it’s kind of ironic that later in life, he takes Finn’s identity. It’s almost like he earns it through effort and adaptation. Finn took his identity out of necessity and I guess I haven’t completely figured out why he took Finn’s identity, besides the want to be something independent and beautiful. The things he wasn’t yet. I’m going to be reflecting on this one for awhile.

“And if you want company, real company, not just people hanging about making noise, that’s when you realize how lonely you are.”

“People around here didn’t waste words; language was a tool, not a treat.”

“But most of all what I wanted was to see myself through his eyes, to define myself in relation to him, to sift out what was interesting in me (what he must have liked, however insignificant) and distill it into a purer, bolder, more compelling version of myself.”

“It was a lesson that has proved valuable in later life, this acceptance of another person’s silence, for I am more the silence-filler sort of person, hopeless on bird-watching expeditions.”

“Of course back then, I still thought of history as a full and frank collection of facts. Now I understand that it is only a story, one of many, or may parts of several different stories…”

“Would people from the future excavate traces of passion? Of hope, disappointment, despair? Would they uncover layers of love and layers of loss?”

Reading from their book, The Age of Persuasion, Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant spoke of today’s advertising and the work that goes on behind the scenes. And although I didn’t really care much for the actual book reading, I really liked the Q&A session that followed. One of the things they pointed out a few times was this notion that advertising has this agreement that they might take time away from the viewer, but they also give something back. And while this may be true for TV programming or magazines, I wonder what we’re getting back when we walk down the street or have to sit through a commercial before our movie.

One of the questions asked was something along the lines of, Does advertising shape our society or reflect it? And both O’Reilly and Tennant felt that society will only accept what it already embraces. That our society is only this way because we let it be this way. Fair enough, but after consideration, I believe it’s a gross over-simplification. Kind of like which came first the chicken or the egg?

And wow, is Mike Tennant really that big of an O’Reilly fan or does he have a bit of an inferiority complex? It seemed like he was always bowing down to O’Reilly, but something about it seemed fake, edgy and almost desparate for something in return. Maybe I’m imagining things, but I kind of feel like over-flattery is a form of self-deprecation.

Streamed tears almost the whole way through. I would love to leave this world with the dignity that Daigo touched people with.

Maybe it is fate that brings us back to ourselves and to the unanswered questions of our past. The beauty of controlled stories. But I liked how Diago ended up coming to peace with his father’s abandonment before he himself became a father. I think it was learning that his father’s life wasn’t blissful, that his final thoughts were on his son, helped him forgive.

It’s tragic to think that there are things that we regret, pain we have inflicted, that freezes us in our tracks. And our regret, shame and guilt makes it impossible to even try to redeem yourselves. So we don’t even try.