I'm not sure when i started to become a reader of sad stories (i tried using the phrase "lover of sad stories", but felt it sounded a bit masochistic). Probably it started when my brother brought back a copy of the book "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker. Here's a bit about the story from wiki:
The Color Purple is an epistolary novel: that is, the book is written in the form of letters. The central character is Celie, a young woman who is sexually abused by her father (who, she later discovers, is her stepfather) and is forced to marry a widower with several children, who is physically abusive towards her.
When her husband's mistress, singer "Shug" Avery, comes on the scene. Initially, Celie feels threatened by this effervescent, liberated version of feminity - a form that has previously been alien to her.
Like "Mr-", Celie's husband, Shug has little respect for Celie and the life she lives at first and continues in her lover's footsteps, abusing Celie and adding to her humiliation.
In time, however, the two women bond, and Celie gradually learns what it means to become an empowered woman in her own right, through both sexual and financial emancipation and she finds the strength to leave her tyrannical husband.
When her husband's mistress, singer "Shug" Avery, comes on the scene. Initially, Celie feels threatened by this effervescent, liberated version of feminity - a form that has previously been alien to her.
Like "Mr-", Celie's husband, Shug has little respect for Celie and the life she lives at first and continues in her lover's footsteps, abusing Celie and adding to her humiliation.
In time, however, the two women bond, and Celie gradually learns what it means to become an empowered woman in her own right, through both sexual and financial emancipation and she finds the strength to leave her tyrannical husband.
This happens to be my first "introduction" to sad stories, more follows suit, such as "Angela's Ashes", "'Tis", "Falling Leaves", "青青河边草","Disappointment With God"....
Not a very large collection, but i guess it's good; a good way for me to connect to people from another side of the world, people from the other end of the weighing scale, those stricken, trodden, and cast out. It doesn't need to have a happy ending, nope, not all stories (fiction or non fiction) have happy endings.
Do they teach me to be more thankful? Probably.
But i guess it's more of a sad feeling, that keep me clinging to the books at time.
Ok, more or less for this post, write to me? I'll see what i can remember of the rest of the books, and maybe post them up later on.
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