"You do no know your danger, Théoden," interrupted Gandalf. "These hobbits will sit on the edge of ruin and discuss the pleasures of the table, or the small doings of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, and the remoter cousins to the ninth degree, if you encourage them with undue patience." J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers.
I was rereading a favorite story the other day and ran across this amusing little interlude. The amusement comes because everyone has an aunt or a neighbor or a landlady or a coworker that answers to this description. I discover such a one almost daily whenever I have to talk with someone on the phone at work. It should only take a few minutes to get to the gist of the problem but it seems the life history and family tree and assorted personal crises must first be told (in triplicate) before we can get to the real question which is almost always completely unrelated to the ten minutes of autobiography I have just had to endure.
I think that is why certain books feel more like old friends than a collection of words on paper, a good author is someone who can take the unfamiliar and exotic and make it seem like a chat over the backyard fence (do people still do that or has the text message destroyed this age old gossip method?). I like certain works within the sci-fi/fantasy genre but am repelled by others and I think this 'familiarity' has a lot to do with it. Just as I dread sitting down and watching certain movies or chatting with certain people, so too do I dislike books that don't at once make me feel 'at home' and 'involved.' If a book is distant or arrogant or indifferent, just like people, it drives me away and ne'er the twain shall meet. Draw me in, involve me, make me feel that I have known this book (or person) all my life, and I am yours! Never trust a haughty book. Only old friends and friendly books need linger long beside my hearth.
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