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I feel like Peter at the end of Puppets at Achilles gravesite when he asks if he's the only one who sees something of himself in Achilles. I see parts of myself in Bean and Ender all the time.
I just finished Giant, and I don't know if it's the book or just my recent emotional life, but that book made me cry long after I put it down.
OSC-- how closely do you find yourself connected to your characters? Do you ever weep for them or have your heart ache for their sakes? I know, it's personal, but I couln't help asking.
Posts: 84 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:I NEVER feel emotion while writing (except the trance of involvement in the story) but I sobbed my way through that last chapter [of Lost Boys] so badly that it was a good thing I was a touch typist because otherwise it would never have got written.
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Sometimes that happens to me, Ill, but only when I can relate to a certain character. Usually it's something bad about the character though. Dunno why.
Posts: 12 | Registered: May 2005
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Doc- that's interesting. For me, it's usually about family: the one thing I've always wanted and haven't been able to have yet. I guess that's one of the reasons I relate so well with Bean (without a childhood family and leaving his wife and children behind) and Ender (Who really only ever had Valentine until the later books).
Papa Moose, thanks for the link. Very insightful. Though do wonder if there's a particular character that OSC connects with more than the others in the Enderverse.
Posts: 84 | Registered: Jun 2005
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One of my best book-cries of all times is the end of Ender's Shadow when Bean whispers, "Absalom, Absalom . . ." to the crew of the starship.
It's just such an evocative verse, and from Bean the family-less (who doubted his own capacity for true human connection) -- so powerful for me. I even cry when I re-read it. Love that book!
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I always get a little wispy, in Ender's Game, where Bean is lying alseep after talking to Ender, and it is said, "He was a soldier, and if anyone had asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he wouldn't have known what they were talking about."
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I read that section (starting with Bean talking to Ender about the fight with Bonzo) for a dramatic reading assignment in high school. Man, was it ever hard to keep te emotions controlled.
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If Card's stories make me cry, but I also sob regularly on a monday night of ABC with that homebuilding show (and still don't walk on down to Sears for my home-remodeling necessities),
what does that mean?
Tears are the metric of "truth" in the storyteller's art?
Posts: 551 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote: Tears are the metric of "truth" in the storyteller's art?
Nah. No more than laughter, or moments of deep recognition. Tears are just one way that we as readers acknowledge that a writer (or other storyteller or artist) has accurately rendered the human condition. Am I crying for Bean, or his lost childhood, or children who lose their childhoods, or for King David, or for Absalom, or for fathers whose sons hate them, or for fathers who love their sons anyway, or for the kind of parent love that would sacrifice itself for a child, or for the kind of nobility that causes a soldier to willingly die for a cause, or for Bean's sensitive recognition of all of that, or . . . or . . . I think for me, tears also reflect a certain level of complexity in the work in question. (This is classic reader response theory, too -- the text is deepened by what I bring to it that authors may never have intended, although I'm one of those firmly on the side of "authors do things on purpose.")
Obviously tears aren't drawn only by truth -- I've definitely gotten sniffly at a Hallmark commercial or two. There's a certain level of enjoyment in the maudlin (at least for some of us . . . cough cough . . . ok, me) -- the effort to create emotion in an audience is the purpose of, well, basically the entire entertainment industry. But while I enjoy the suspense, say, of American Idol, I realize that for me at least, it's created, manipulative, and vicarious. Whereas it seems to me that genuine emotional response to literature (though fiction at least is certainly less "real") is more a recognition of truth -- especially if the experience remains memorable and repeats itself upon successive readings (or in some cases, viewings).
What a great question! Thanks . . . it was fun to think about.
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i always get teary eyed when i read speaker for the dead, when novinha (spelling.. sry) reconnects with her children, specially Olhado. man OSC just pegs those emotions so damn well
Posts: 46 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Man, now I feel like a hollow, emotionless loser.
I've never actually sobbed over any reading. The closest thing to it that has happened to me would be goosebumps after reading something powerful, including most of the previously mentioned sections of the stories
Posts: 23 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Crocodile Tears, Reconvecting Ovens, and Saying Goodnight to the Goooose (*bumps*): An oddly chartreuse-goggled vision for the future.
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Liz B-- thanks for that. I think for me it is definately how human Mr. Card makes his characters that helps me connect with them on such a deep level.
I don't know if anyone's a HUGE fan of The Giver, by Lois Lowry (sp?), but even more than EG, that book brings out the swell of emotions I carry. Though, oddly enough, the Shadow series carries more of that for me than the Speaker series.
I just want to add-- Mr. Card, you know people well. Thanks for making that part of your books!
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I nearly cry when Ender leaves Valentine for Battle School, just because in hindsight it's like losing all that Ender might have been under her influence, rather than Graff's.
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quote:Originally posted by Joldo: I nearly cry when Ender leaves Valentine for Battle School, just because in hindsight it's like losing all that Ender might have been under her influence, rather than Graff's.
What do you think would have been different if Ender had stayed with Val, instead of going to Battle School (if that is what you're referring to)?
Even under Val's influence, Ender was a killer. Graff just built on that in preparation for the Formics. I guess I'm just not sure what "losing all that Ender might have been under her influence" is referring to... enlighten me, please?
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I'm not Joldo, but I'll reply to the question anyway. (Since I'm up . . .)
Battle school honed the killer in Ender, and certainly prompted its first appearance (since the loss of the monitor and the deliberate observation & noninterference of the adults was the ultimate cause of the first murder). Ender could've (would've) been very different if he'd been allowed to be "normal." And yet, I don't think that the character of Ender as created by Card would've been much influenced by Valentine.
The problem with discussing Valentine's "influence" on Ender is that it's unclear whether or not she could have had much of one when he was growing up. Ender is very aware of human motivation and interaction from the first moment we see him, and I believe he is (and would be) only as influenced by Valentine as he allows himself to be. So -- he doesn't seem to me to have ever been "under" her influence. He might love and admire and wish to emulate her -- but Ender specializes in creating his own choices and making his own mistakes.
But. Ender lost all that he could have been if he had been buoyed by her love throughout his childhood and adolescence.
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posted
Ouch. I don't think of Ender as a killer, I think of him as an "ender." He killed without intending to kill - though his intentions were brutal enough!
As to emotions and Kratos's jesting comment about feeling like an emotionless loser - some people cry more readily than others. Some people identify with characters more readily than others.
Me, I'm a weeper - but I'm also a hostile witness. So it's not easy to get me to identify with a character enough to care; but once I do, you can yank tears out of my ducts with amazing ease ... Nothing wrong with that; and nothing wrong with NOT being a cryer. YOUR books don't get all crinkly with teardrops.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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quote: I've never actually sobbed over any reading. The closest thing to it that has happened to me would be goosebumps after reading something powerful
Same thing. Deep-seated emotional response, just expressed differently.
quote:Originally posted by Orson Scott Card: Ouch. I don't think of Ender as a killer, I think of him as an "ender." He killed without intending to kill - though his intentions were brutal enough!
Wrote that comment about Ender being a killer on a bad day....
But I liked your insight about Ender's name, OSC. I always placed Ender's name with the fact that he ended the family (being the last born child) but I never put together about his name and how he fought his battles-- always ending them soundly, and also being the one to end the bugger war.
quote:Originally posted by Liz B: Battle school honed the killer in Ender, and certainly prompted its first appearance (since the loss of the monitor and the deliberate observation & noninterference of the adults was the ultimate cause of the first murder).
Interesting point. Hadn't put that together.... time to read EG again, I suppose. Posts: 84 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Wrote that comment about Ender being a killer on a bad day.... ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
