(Good years)
“There is no problem so big, that it cannot be run away from.”
“Are you quoting from Snoopy now?”
“I’ll quote the truth wherever I find it”
That exchange, or something very like it, takes place it the book “Illusions” by Richard Bach (he’s generally better known for “Johnathon Livingston Seagull”), and like much of the book (really just a large short story) I found it touched a chord in me at that time. I’ve haven’t possessed a copy in at least twenty years (on loan..) but bits of it have always stayed with me. The idea that truth, or at least “a truth” can be encountered in fiction, or cartoon, or in many unexpected everyday settings, has always had a resonance.
I don’t get a lot of time for TV these days, but now and again Chris and I will stumble across some drama that we can both engage with, and there will be a series of nights where we can share the sofa in front of the telly.
We’re both quite picky and quite different in our tastes, so over the years we’ve watched a lot of first episodes then given up, though ocassionally the other partner (usually me) will follow it up on their own, just to see where it goes. I will also sometimes watch a first episode, and gague whether this is likely to be worth suggesting for joint viewing.
True detective -season 1, Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson . It’s disturbing, it’s pretty graphic (sex and violence), and it gripped me from the off, particularly the performance of the two leads, both playing deeply flawed or troubled police officers/human beings.
Much of the story is told in flashback as the characters relate events from a brutal case years before. Harrelsons character, at one point, lost in his memories, reflects on his wider life and particuar his (now failed) marriage.
“… all the truth I ever needed was there in front of me, it was good and I couldn’t see it, I was distracted…do you ever know that you’re living in the good years? Or is it just later…..”
The character, the dialogue, completely fictional. But the question, the question is not, and it reminds me to look again at what is under my nose, who is in and around my life, and take a moment to recognise, that yes, these are the good years.
I think that’s what a good story is meant to do, and it’s just one more bizarre place to find a nugget of truth, which I thought I should share.
LDW
Next week on IaDL - “V” day approaches
Dalmallyfest the Asylum 