lies
I think in
Confessions at one point Augustine decries going to the theater and
indulging in easy mock-"compassion" for characters, for whom we can do
nothing- as if feeling were a commodity that could be wasted (as
perhaps it is, I don't know).
Every once in a while a work of fiction rips my heart out, and for days
I can't quite seem to concentrate on anything else. I lie awake
thinking about these completely made-up beings. When I can get to
sleep, I find I dream about them, turning whatever knots they're caught
up in over and over in my mind, and trying to see the way to untie them
and let these fictional people be happy. I think it's fair to say I
fall in love with them, actually. Leaving aside the eternally
fascinating and mystifying Beloved- who after all has probably been
more than half fictional in more than half of my own love-stories, and
maybe is so by nature- I don't spend this much time on any real people.
Except maybe myself… so I suppose that's who I'm actually trying to
free. The storyline calls for so much loss, love wasted, promise
unfulfilled, death: how do we get out?