Memories from The Anchoress

The Anchoress posts a memory from some years ago. A memory that I had forgotten. Funny how a sudden remembrance can raise forgotten emotions, too.

It's like that when I write, although I wasn't really prepared for such a reaction when I began. To dredge up emotions, so as to examine them, and describe them in my own writing, is alien to me. Maybe it's my upbringing, or maybe it's that whole White-Bread protestant thing, but emotions were not really up front in my mis-spent youth.

Probably that's one of the reasons I went into acting in school. Somewhere within me I had a fascination with the emotions. Evoking strong emotions in acting is not as easy as some folks think. Yet it is so satisfying when it works for you.

So, in the Arts, emotional response is important. Maybe it's really everything. After all, what do we really remember from a Museum tour? The workman-like sculptures and paintings? No. Of course not. We remember those works that draw the emotions out of us.

So, too, with literature. Emotions must be there, within the story, or the reading seems somehow bland, lifeless. And to me, it is lifeless. One of the reasons I quit even trying to wade through some classics of literature was because so much of it was simply dry: a boring recitation of the facts of a story. Herman Melville evokes nothing in me but sheer boredom. What the man needed was a very energetic editor.

So, when the Anchoress posts a memory of something I have long forgotten, it is refreshing in that the emotions are right there! Alive! As fresh as the day I first experienced them.

How 'bout you? When you re-read a novel, do the emotions come back? The laughter, the tears? Are the memories of the story fresh again?

Read the post from The Anchoress. See if you remember.