It is hard to explain some responses. I don't know that I can explain well, but I know that I FEEL, deeply. I know that I must attempt at expressing or attempt in explaining and exploring these feelings - this response to this book I have just finished.
I read this book over about a month's time. In agreement with my sister, my initial reaction was to discard it due to the book's popularity and sudden hipe. It's silly, really. The book was quite captivating, beautiful, heartbreaking - a brilliant story. I have felt whisked away to a new land. I felt as though I was really watching things happen, as though I was there. I wept through most of it which is humorous mostly because I spent most of my time reading it in various coffee shops around Calgary. I just tried not to make a sound and hoped nobody would look at the girl clutching her book with tears pouring down her face.
Why such a response? Of course there is so much to weep about in it.. (the downtrodden, the stepped on, the abused. Beautiful humans treated as less for some bull-shit reason or another. Yes, these are truths to keep us grieved.) But there seems to be a theme that really tears at my heart. Something that brings me to tears wherever it appears, and that I perhaps insufficiently describe as selfless love.
In the book one boy serves the other. He serves happily, adoringly, simply and lovingly. There is something within this boy that drives him to utter servanthood to the point that he is almost entirely destroyed in his sacrifice for the other. To the end of his life, this love continued. It is perhaps similarly a Frodo and Sam effect, that also gets me.
I relate, I believe, on two levels. One, I stand in awe at the one who loves so effortlessly, so genuinely and truly, even when love is not returned. I am in awe of the seeming dichotomy of simplicity and most significant and greatest achievement. The one that is so simple achieves that which is most honourable in all the world. (The underdog, the lowest of low in society was treated so poorly and yet HE was the one more worthy than them all). And I weep that I seem to relate more to the boy who was served.
Secondly, this image, this theme is one that is so dear to my heart. It is like a small dream I have secretly kept hidden, packed away in a box labelled, 'Unattainable Ideals.' Almost forgotten and often abandoned it is written word like this, stories and images that bring me to remembrance that this is something that I deeply value, and maybe it truly exists.
I am sometimes embarrassed by how moved I am by many things (more so in my adult years at least). I am one who has definitely measured her life in terms of emotional experiences. My response to this book in particular sort of surprised me. I know there are deeper issues at play, but what I am thankful for is a reminder of something beautiful, something redeeming, something life-giving in the darkest and most tragic of circumstances - A love that I will press on to fathom, grasp and emulate.
