Learn It. Know It. Live It.

O.K., after my long absence, I know I owe everyone a catch-up post, and one will be forthcoming this week. However, before I forget about it, I really need to air one of my all-time biggest pet peeves. This weekend, I read The Ruins, by Scott Smith. I was expecting an intelligent, literary thriller, as Smith was also the author of A Simple Plan, which I didn't actually read, but I heard it was great and I loved the movie. Well, The Ruins turned out to be kind of a B-grade horror story with a completely unbelievable plot, flat characters, and infuriating turns-of-events--and I couldn't put it down. As silly and asinine (and, I might add, gross) as it was, it was also nevertheless compelling, and I couldn't quite figure out why. So, today I went online to read some reviews and see what other people thought of it. As it turns out, readers were all over the place--most people either loved or hated it. There were also plenty of people like me, who recognized it as completely silly but couldn't stop reading. What struck me the most, however, was the number of folks who made some reference to "suspending belief."

People, if you're going to take the time to actually write a book review on Amazon, please also take the time to get your literary phrasings down correctly. [WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD RE. THE RUINS.] If you're reading a novel about vines that can think, reason, plan, move, speak German, kill people, and laugh about it all, you are suspending DISBELIEF--as in, all this stuff is completely impossible to believe, and therefore you feel DISBELIEF, but you are SUSPENDING that feeling in order to just escape into a book (or movie, or T.V. show, etc.) for a while. On the other hand, if you live in a world where the above scenario inspires BELIEF, then I'm sorry, but I don't think they should allow you to have books like that in the sanitarium. That's just my opinion.

If you need further clarification, here's a Wikipedia article on the whole concept. Please learn how to use this phrase correctly, or stay away from the Amazon "post" button. Thank you.

[To all: Please keep tuning in . . . posts will come more frequently. I finished my project!!!]