Reading Ruminations: Bitter Endings and Hopelessness
There’s something about reading a book with a bitter end that leaves one feeling empty. I’m often left with a sense of slight annoyance with the lack of resolution at a book’s end, but it’s rarer that the story ends and I’m left with a sense of actual loss. With most books I come to resonate with at least a few of the characters, after all, that’s a large part of what makes for a gripping story, so it’s understandable that I feel a bit broken as things crumble down around those characters. Emotion, true emotion, is something that every story needs. No one will connect with it if there is nothing with which to connect. With that in mind, I realize that there must be heartbreak and pain in characters’ lives. They have no depth if they experience no suffering. That is not to say that all their suffering should be uniform. It is not so in reality, so it follows that the same concept would apply in alternate realities. Still, it is dishear...