Sad

When Y wouldn’t let me tell him all about the latest novel I’d read – Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper – I whined, “But you have to let me tell you. It’s so sad!”

To which he replied, “You always say that. Everything you read is so sad.”

To which I stopped, and realised that he was right. Why is everything I read (and love) so sad? Just off the top of my head, I’ve recently finished The Kite Runner, A Mighty Heart and The Time Traveler’s Wife, and yes, they have all induced tears, some more than others.

The sentiment crosses over into films as well. I seem to admire sad movies more than I do happy ones, although I did like Finding Neverland very much. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate a quality romantic comedy – I’ve watched Love Actually four times – but I think the sadness in books and films (and music) resonate with me because, let’s face it, we live in an often very sad world.

I guess when films and books give me something other than the cliched happy ending, it strikes me as more real somehow, a stark reminder of how life isn’t always fair, and things don’t always turn out for the better, and good doesn’t always triumph over evil, at least in the temporal. Many people watch movies to imitate art, but in a very depressing way, I’m glad art has also been doing its share of imitating life.

Ironically, these are thoughts from an avowed musical lover – the very genre of musical having been built on the foundations of escapism and happy endings. Maybe that’s my exception, though to be fair, not all musicals have happy endings anymore. And oh how I love those that do not.