I don't know if you notice things more that are always there when they come into your life or whether its just the way the world has changed over the years. Take anxiety for example and in its extreme form panic. I've been reading for years and never knew what a panic attack was until I experienced one. Never really thought much about anxiety either nor to my knowledge came across it much, if at all, in the books I read. Though having read a lot of horror books I am sure I must have. But I wonder if it was always there and I didn't pay it any notice or whether its now a case that the world is so demanding and fast that at some level there is more anxiety in everyone's life.
In the past week I've read two novels which were very different. Yet somewhere in there there is an anxious experience. In some there are more of them than others but it seems like every novel I read there is a reference to it somewhere. Then again I wonder is it not a case that any novel is going to have a character going through a full range of emotions and the most prevalent of those is likely to be fear?
He stretched awkwardly in his seat now, the stiffness in his arms prompting another memory, of folding them around Siobhan outside the Sunday Herald and kissing her goodnight. The way she'd pressed her body against into his. Why the hell did it have to feel so right, when it was obviously never going to work with her? Suddenly, he felt a tightness in his chest, as if his lungs were constricting inside him. He felt the woman beside him shift an inch or two further away, and wondered if this is what it was like to suffer an anxiety attack. But it only lasted a moment and once it had passed her felt a great wave of relief wash through him.
THE PRIEST, Gerard O'Donovan
This was an average crime thriller in which you would think there would be a lot of anxiety and fear but strangely there was very little in it. The main reason for that is that the crimes were not told but instead investigated later so apart from a victim reliving the trauma under hypnotherapy this was about the only other reference. It made me wonder though if this was a first hand experience related by the author. Here an Irish detective is on a plane to Madrid remembering the night before and being torn by his emotions- the old love/hate thing.
Cale was astonished at himself as terror drained him of the strength that had made him invincible for almost half his life. His tongue, dry as sand, stuck to the roof of his mouth, the muscles in his thighs hurt, barely able to support him, his arms, oak strong, felt as if to lift them would be an impossible feat and there was a strange burning in his ears...Panic ran riot through Cale's wilting soul as if some reservoir of fear had been dammed up in him for all these years and now had burst its banks and swept away all nerve and guts, all gall and the will to power.
THE LEFT HAND OF GOD, Paul Hoffman
I really enjoyed this fantasy novel except for the abrupt end but have since learned the reason for that was its the first part of a trilogy. Here a boy who is a fearless, in fact emotionless, killing machine suddenly finds himself for the first time in his adult life panicking in a duel. Probably its intensified by the fact that he has been free of fear every time in a fight up until that point. And the only reason for it is finding love. Maybe that was the burst of the dam which itself was maybe repression.
While I am on the subject of this book off on a tangent for a bit. Although fiction there is a great dandy philosopher with the strange name IdrisPukke. There is not enough of him in it for me. He's a real scallywag but his views are both insightful in some ways and funny in others.
'Solitude is a wonderful thing, Cale, and in two ways. First, it allows a man to be with himself, and second, it prevents him from being with others.' Cale nodded his agreement with a sincerity that was only possible for someone who had spent every waking and sleeping hour of his life with hundreds of others and always being spied upon.
'To be sociable,' IdrisPukke continued, 'is a risky thing- even fatal- because it means being in contact with people, most of whom are dull, perverse and ignorant and are really with you only because they cannot bear their own company. Most people bore themselves and greet you not as a true friend but as a distraction- like a dancing dog or some half-wit actor with a fund of amusing stories.'
THE LEFT HAND OF GOD, Paul Hoffman
I just love that. But to get back on topic I could quote paragraphs from all the books I've read in the past few years were it not for the fact my memory banks are now so clogged that two a bit more than I can fit in there. There is something reassuring, for me anyway, about reading fear in another and seeing it here, there and everywhere. It reminds me its not uncommon. OK for me its out of context but take away the situation and the experience is no different from what millions of others have felt too. Even in fiction there is some comfort. I remember reading an historical fiction novel, the title escapes me, about Spartans in training and their methods for achieving fearlessness. Not only their methods but also the philosophy behind it. It didn't matter that it was fiction because to me it was fascinating. And I guess that is why we are all in the bloggy community because there is something of interest and a common ground from which we hope we can gain understanding and if not that then comfort in knowing we are not alone via the written word.
