The Binder. 
I read The Notebook for the first time today. I don’t generally read bestsellers. Not because I eschew popularity, but because the books on the bestseller list seem to regularly disappoint me. For me, there is something lacking, some hole some feeling or quality that is not there and I usually end up tossing the paper from me in disgust. This makes me feel a bit hollow and cynical and jaded about reading in general.
The Notebook was missing things too, lots of things. It was a tearjerker to the point of maudlinity, and it was stilted in places, many places. It still made me cry. I cried because I thought I understood what Mr. Sparks was trying so hard to get out. Specialness. He was trying to tell us about two people who were special, and from that came love that was rare.
But everyone is special, you say, everyone is special and beautiful in their own way.
I cannot agree with that.
Everyone is different. All of us have things happen to us to make us unique. Not all of us are special. In all honesty, of the hundreds and hundreds of people I have known in my short life, I can say that only a tiny handful have been Special.
I watched the movie tonight, the movie based on the book, and I got to see their idea, Hollywood’s idea, of specialness, and even though the movie was nice, and it made me cry too, something was lost. Something that Mr. Sparks had been able to brush against, and while not able to bring it fully into focus, he was able to capture some of its form.
Ah well. We all need a good cry once in awhile, don’t we?
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
You know what? You have just written here almost exactly what I thought when I read that book. I cried, too. But I still felt like something was missing and I wasn’t exactly sure what. Thanks for reading my mind.