Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and books on tape. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
One of the fun things about reading an adventure story or a mystery is that the protagonists get into some pretty tight spots. It isn’t fair to have an easy way out like waving your wand. That would be cheating. It has to be hard to do and it is always fun when it is clever. Sometimes it is painful to watch and there is no guarantee of a happy ending. The reader has to mourn sometimes when the character loses.
I was reading a story this week in which a godling’s friendship is betrayed. Even when I tried to figure out how this would help the plot and why it was done as the godling tries to do, also, I felt angry on his behalf. I felt cheated for him because I didn’t see it coming, either. Betrayals really hurt.
In an episode of an old TV show, one of the main characters has to pass a lie detector test to keep his job at the FBI. He can’t answer the question, “Did anything unusual happen in the last six months,” because if he does he will be put away as crazy.
There are times in stories when someone has to admit they have been wrong. It is embarrassing, but it is the only way out. Telling the truth sometimes hurts and sometimes it doesn’t even work, but the hero has to face up to it and do it.
Getting out of some tight spots takes grace and humor and the help of a friend or partner or even a kind stranger.
In the true story Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, Abdulrahman Zeitoun stays behind in New Orleans with Katrina on the way despite his wife and brother asking him to leave. He feels he has good reasons to stay to help people board up their homes, and to check on his own property. As the levees break and the city floods, he uses a canoe to help people and dogs. One lady’s cries for help would only have been heard by him in a quiet canoe.
But tragedy occurs when he and three others are grabbed out of his own rental home and accused of stealing. He is not allowed a phone call to his wife or to anyone. I ask you to read the story to see how he was rescued. It is an important story.
Often the only way out of a tight spot is to go through. It is easier said than done.
In The City of Dragons by Robin Hobb which is part of a series, the dragons must learn to fly despite their immature wings or starve. There is no easy way out, no one to do it for them. They must practice and they must try over and over even when they fail. Their hunters who also catch fish or game for them have used up nearly all the game in the area on that side of the river. Time is running out.
Bren Cameron in the Foreigner series by C. J. Cherryh uses words to get out of tight spots. He has been trained as a diplomat, but it is his fast foot work with words that saves him. It is always interesting to watch him at work with a dangerous and recalcitrant foe. In the most recent book, Intruder, Bren must convince others that the dangerous man can be an ally to them. I won’t spoil it for you, but it makes me smile to read the story and to see how he does it. He is always on the knife edge of failure.
What stories did you enjoy reading where the hero or heroine escapes from a tight spot?
What stories broke your heart when a choice had to be made and a loved one was lost as a result?
Did you get left hanging at the end of the story to wonder what happened for years until the sequel came out?
Diaries of the Week
Write On! Worldbuilding 3: You got me living in a fantasy world.
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thursday Classical Music OPUS 77: Szymanowski Violin Concerto #1
by Dumbo
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The ride is this Saturday!
Hill Country Ride for AIDS - who your money helps
by anotherdemocrat
http://www.dailykos.com/...
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