On Books and Tears

I’ll admit it: I’m a cry baby. Heartfelt commercials make me teary-eyed, and on more than one occasion I’ve found myself doubled over weeping while watching a movie. Don’t even get me started on weddings. And I don’t even like weddings.

But books… books know how to really get me. As most book lovers know, there is something particularly engaging about well-constructed characters in a novel. The long-format written narrative allows for a degree of character depth that any other art form would be hard pressed to match. I am a firm believer that this depth is what makes the process of reading so fundamentally vital to our understanding of each other outside the realm of fiction. Through the mannerisms, idiosyncrasies, triumphs, and failures of minutely constructed characters, we are given an opportunity to recognize ourselves and those around us, and to reflect on these behaviours. Through reading, we become more understanding, more empathetic, and more sensitive to the vast range of emotions and experiences that characterize human existence.

It is for these reasons that by the end of a good book, it often becomes nearly impossible to separate our emotional investment in the story from our reality. And it is because of this phenomenon – the sheer power of the written word – that I often find myself wiping away tears while reading. If the story isn’t of the sort that provokes tears (intentionally or not), it will nonetheless often stay with me for days in the form of a lingering sadness, a sense of wonderment, or simply amazement that the characters I’ve just grown to love, hate, admire, despise, do not really exist in this world. It gets me every time.

I had intended for this post to revolve around my experiences reading The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – the beautifully written and brilliantly constructed novel that truly captured and ran away with the imaginations of millions. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that the story and, in particular, its ending, stayed with me for a long time after I turned the last page. When I reached that last heart wrenching scene, I happened to be sitting on a packed subway in London, England. And I cried. Uncontrollably. We’re talking tears-streaming-down-my-face-oh-my-god-I-look-like-a-crazy-person cried.

That was two years ago, and I still think about that book and its impact on my reality.

That’s why, to me, literature is such a profoundly powerful art form. If, by reading words on a page, it’s possible for an individual to feel fundamentally changed – that is truly something to marvel at.