{"id":3651,"date":"2014-08-20T20:13:18","date_gmt":"2014-08-21T00:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3651"},"modified":"2015-01-03T06:13:45","modified_gmt":"2015-01-03T11:13:45","slug":"tearful-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3651","title":{"rendered":"Tearful Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"snowy<\/a>

(photo: wikimedia.org)<\/p><\/div>\n

What happens when a book character you\u2019ve come to love dies\u2014or a relationship you\u2019ve treasured comes to naught? Grief, that\u2019s what. The five stages of fictional grief\u2014rereading (\u201cdid I get that right?\u201d), dismay, rationalization and hope, anger (throw the book across the room), and never getting over it\u2014are explored in an amusing Bookriot post<\/a> by Susie Rodarme. Anger is appropriate when characters are killed off randomly, to keep them from cluttering up the plot any longer.<\/p>\n

We saw a manifestation of these stages on social media when Downton Abbey\u2019s<\/em> Matthew Crawley came to his untimely end. “I can’t believe it!” “Nooooooo.” \u201cI\u2019m not watching any more!\u201d \u201cMaybe he\u2019s not reaaally dead?\u201d For readers of paranormal fiction, there\u2019s always a chance . . .<\/p>\n

Tess of the D\u2019Urbervilles<\/em> was a real weepy for me. I read it several times and, once I knew the ending, began getting weepy from page one (delicious!). Cormac McCarthy\u2019s The Crossing<\/em> (review here<\/a>) is the most recent book that prompted those \u201cwhy did she have to die?\u201d feelings, and true regret that left me down for days.<\/p>\n

The comments on Rodarme\u2019s post are interesting. Must be a youngish crowd, since most of their literary tear-blotting experiences are associated with Harry Potter, and repeatedly cited is the death of Hedwig, a character introduced this way: \u201cHarry now carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing.\u201d<\/em> I\u2019m guessing many of those who say they grieved long and hard over Hedwig, subconsciously at least, recognize her death symbolized Harry\u2019s loss of innocence, and that\u2019s what they regret, as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What happens when a book character you\u2019ve come to love dies\u2014or a relationship you\u2019ve treasured comes to naught? Grief, that\u2019s what. The five stages of fictional grief\u2014rereading (\u201cdid I get that right?\u201d), dismay, rationalization and hope, anger (throw the book … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Tearful Fiction","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[74,40,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emotions","category-fiction","category-the-morgue"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-WT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3653,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651\/revisions\/3653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}