Empire Falls

I'm going to post on this book immediately after reading it. Interestingly, I would have thought that books need some time to marinate in my brain before I can really digest them. But lately I've been posting about books weeks after reading them and I have a hard time remembering my thoughts and impressions.

I got online after reading this book because I felt like I needed to discuss it, and short of my sister who recommended the book to me but who told me she forgot the plot, I didn't have anyone to discuss it with. I've actually felt like that at the end of each of the Richard Russo books I've read. I'm never really sure exactly what I want to discuss, just that I want to be in a college class with this as the text. I feel like I'm missing something incredible without the benefit of a close group study.

Anyway, I tried to satiate that need by reading other people's opinions of it, and I came across this quotation from an interview Russo gave after he wrote the screeplay for a mini-series based on the novel:

"You know, you say, 'Why did Columbine happen?' Well, people on the right say it's because of violence in movies and video games. People on the left say it's because of the availability of guns. And the argument goes on as if we have to choose between these explanations.

"But really what people are asking is, 'What does it feel like when something like that happens? What does it feel like to be a parent? What does it feel like to be a child? And that's what stories do. They bring you there. They offer a dramatic explanation, which is always different from an expository explanation.

"And I think that if people are instructed about anything, it should be about the nature of cruelty. And about why people behave so cruelly to each other. And what kind of satisfactions they derive from it. And why there is always a cost, and a price to be paid."

Why do people behave cruelly to each other? Russo offers several suggestions. Jealousy, depravity, in an effort to put oneself on top. Peer pressure, embarassment. To maintain an image. To protect loved ones.

A lot of this novel plays out in a high school, and I think public school is the time when I was closest to those emotions and the closest to cruelty. I think a lot of this is because school is populated by teenagers, and teenagers are bombarded with these sentiments. I've long believed that the hardest times in my life happened in high school because that was before I had confidence in my worldview and lacked the proper perspective to digest the experience, but this book made me wonder if maybe the reason is because I'm just not forced to move as closely through life with people as I did during public school. Most the people I interact with now are my family or friends of my own choosing, the only real exception being my students, and since I teach college I only see them for a maximum of four months, eight if they take two of my courses. I just don't have to live in as tight of circumstances anymore.

I don't think I'm a cruel person. Is this because I'm not cruel? Or is it because I'm no longer really provided with the right opportunity?