Yesterday's post got me thinking: Do you think people are attracted to novels that are paced similarly to the way they wish their life were paced?
For instance, I like and have adapted my life toward what I term a European pace. I don't move through the world with the Puritanical rush that captivates much of American society. I don't like having my day busy from the moment I get up until I collapse in bed that evening. I've more of a stop-and-smell-the-roses mentality. When possible, I try to work no more than a thirty-five-hour work week, because my life isn't my work. I try to get out in nature, spend time with friends, and relax into the moment with Cody. I enjoy times of action and adventure, but I also appreciate the down times between them.
Yesterday, I discussed how I like novels that follow this pattern--adventure and intense action followed by a breather. Am I unconsciously seeking novels that mimic my own inner rhythms?
I know that many people don't live at their desired pace. Many people feel stuck in a monotonous routine, their daily lives filled with tedium. Are these the people that seek out the nonstop action novels/movies/TV shows? And those who live fast-paced, nonstop, every-moment-scheduled lives, where their workday begins on the treadmill with their crackberry and doesn't stop until late at night, when the last email is taken care of, long after their children are in bed--do these people seek out the slower-paced fiction, the novels that take them to a different time and world, where time moves in longer strides and the colors and moments are brighter, more intense, more in focus?
Is our choice in fiction a subconscious (or conscious) pairing with our own inner rhythms, and when necessary, a way to harmonize ourselves, if only for during those moments in which we escape into the world of the author's creation?
Or am I reading too much into this?
1 comment:
No, I think I know what you're saying. I've read a few suspense novels, packed to the brim with action, and they all seem to have breather moments.
They'll sit and ponder on the porch with a cup of coffee, talk things over with another character, sit down to watch a romantic movie with a love interest---all while locked down in a safe house, but still. Everyone needs breathers. Even people who live in imaginary worlds.
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