I have a nasty little habit – I get sucked in by love stories. I am such a sap. As unrealistic as it is, I love the idea of happily ever after. Yesterday morning I started a romance (Thank God I haven’t descended into the abyss as far as Danielle Steele; and, to my credit, I didn’t realize it was a romance when I got it), and I continued it when I returned home after work. I kept on reading, despite the clichés, despite the fact that I shouldn’t be reading that late into the night, and despite the fact that it was horribly edited.
The last despite is the one that gets me the most. I know my blogs are probably plagued with typographical and grammatical errors (please feel free, actually, I ask, no implore you to point them out to me), but my blogs aren’t in hardcover. I know that doesn’t excuse my poor grammar, spelling and punctuation; but, I also wasn’t paid, and I definitely can say that I have never been published. I just can’t imagine missing that many things in a published book that people are actually purchasing (I got mine from the library, making it even more tragic). Plus, I am not talking about ending sentences with a preposition or other grammatical rules that are being phased out in our cultural idiocy and desire for ease. I am talking about screwing up tenses, forgetting words, not acknowledging that something is in question form, and just not using commas. Every time I found a mistake, it just grated on my nerves, but somehow, I was drawn into the vortex of wanting to know how the love story ended. How ridiculous is that? (I contemplated not putting a question mark at the end of the last sentence in hopes that someone might publish me.) I knew how it would end, because romances always follow the same path – girl and boy meet, girl and boy hurdle obstacles with the greatest of ease, and girl and boy end up together. And like a cow being herded, this one followed the pack.
During college I swore off romantic comedies for a while. They were just too depressing in the sense that they elevated my expectations while revealing that there was no knight in shining armor – at least not for me in Upland, Indiana. Els and I were just reflecting on Sense and Sensibility (typical love story), and how we love how Elinor has no hope of being with Edward, but in the end, they get together. Why do I love the fact that she suffers? I remember when I first watched S&S someone mentioned that most girls fit the type of one of the three daughters. I was horrified that my sister said I was an Elinor. Who would ever want to be the one who suffers silently, the one who has no hope, the one who only cares for making others happy, the one who has to befriend the usurper of her happiness, and the one who makes it possible for someone else’s dream to come true while her dream is squashed? I don’t think that it was so much the fact that it was true that I was an Elinor that bothered me, but the ramifications of what that meant.
Is there a difference between truth and its ramifications?
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5 comments:
i think you, for a moment, were ranting about danielle steele's editor, but i am far more disappointed in what i have recently found in the writings of max lucado. not only do i find him theologically inept, but also literarily inept. (i neither consider myself a theological or literary scholar, but certain issues are so glaring, that i can't help but point them out.)
I think you are like Elinor except you do share your hopes and dreams with the closest to you. So what book was it anyway?
Meg, I wasn't ranting about Danielle Steele's editor, but about the editor of the book I just read - Laugh Lines. Jen, there is the answer to your question.
I love how the words "pining" and "sappy" go so well together :)
either way, there is no excuse for bad editing in mass produced books. the budget is there for an editor that passed 7th grade grammar.
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