No I'm not quoting Frou Frou.
Dunno what you're talking about.
Today in The Parable we talked about this little Kafka thing about Sirens. There was this aspect about it that floored me: this idea of beauty in sadness. It brought up so many different emotions for me, so many different thoughts, I almost can't express them completely.
I thought immediately of something Emily Gunyou said to me last year. It was about the What a piece of work is man speech from Hamlet. She said that being depressed is almost like unrequited love for the world. You don't dislike the world, you're in love with it, but you can't enjoy it- you can't be with the world. She said that to me and it stuck. I will never forget that speech.
"What a piece of work is man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty. In form and moving how express and admirable. In action how like an angel in apprehension how like a God. The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals, and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me."
It totally pwns To be or Not to be (Do the kids still say "pwns"?) no question. Hamlet is one of the most rich and satisfying pieces of literature I've ever read. The language is just so...
I used to like Romeo and Juliet. Not because of Romeo and Juliet. No, I liked it because of West Side Story. I was listening to the soundtrack today for the first time in like five years. I forgot how much I totally love that music! It's so good! The sweet and mournful tunes match the feel of the story to perfection, unlike some musicals that make no sense. *cough*Wickedisterrible*cough* But anyways, listening to that music made me want to go further into music of my childhood. So I YouTubed Rogers and Hammerstein Cinderella, you know the one with Brandy?
Omigoodness. That is some sweet melodies. It was total and complete trip down baby Paris memory lane. I used to watch that a lot. In my own little corner.
And THAT made me want to go back further so I looked up You are my sunshine because it is a beautiful and happy love song.
WRONG.
It seriously almost made me cry. You know what all the lyrics for that song are?
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away
The other night dear as I laid sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms
But when I woke dear I was mistaken
And I hung my head and I cried
There's more after that too. There is just something about tears and deep sadness that a pretty smile can't come close to capturing.
Vonnegut said something that I think encapulates what I'm trying to get accross here. He said that all great art is about how much of a bummer it is to be a human being. This is a rare instance where I'm going to disagree with my hero here. Just on semantics but still. I think the great art he was refering to is about how being a human being is full of sadness. But I don't think that's a bummer. I think it's beautiful. A happy ending is good, but a sad ending is better because it reflects the sad/beautiful moments in life. Sometimes I think the best ending is an open ended conclusion because it most accurately reflects how life is. You know, like it just trails off without fully completing its thoughts and just leaves you to ponder.
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2 comments:
Oh Paris, you're so post-modern! I don't like open-ended endings to stories. I want to tie my tales up with a bow and set them on the shelf to watch the next thing.
So that begs the question: Does the human story ever end? Why does the human mind want it to?
Paris, how lovely. This made me think of Robert Frost who said, "A poem begins with a lump in the throat, a home-sickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where the emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words."
I love that lump in the throat -- it makes me feel like there is something active to do with sadness and that, like you say, it's beautiful and full and necessary.
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