This is my "This I Believe" essay, written in the style mandated by the original movement as stated on the organization's webpage: http://thisibelieve.org/
Image from www.stockfreeimages.com
This I Believe is my Dream Job
I read Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower during my senior year of high school. I was not overly impressed. An avowed book critic, I found several of the characters unbelievable and exaggerated, the language overly simplistic, and the many musical allusions unnecessary.
Why, then, did one phrase stick in my brain even through the writing of my review for my high school newspaper (700 words conveying my underwhelmedness) and beyond? Why did I feel compelled to see the movie given that, as strange and disappointingly predictable as I found the book, I couldn’t even imagine its narration translated coherently to screen?
In a book crammed full of lines that can and have been quoted endlessly by teenagers just aching for someone to listen to them and understand- lines like “We accept the love we think we deserve,” and “in that moment, I swear we were infinite”- I was drawn to a different theme.
I failed to identify with Charlie, Chbosky’s painfully introverted but disarmingly emotive teenaged narrator, except in one respect: his love of reading and the way he reacts to some writing.
Early on in the book, Charlie says, ““It's strange because sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book.” Even as the rest of the novel unfolded in typical young-adult fashion, I held on to that one line wherein Stephen Chbosky created a perfect clarity within my mind. Yes, at that moment, I read his book and thought I was that screwed-up boy-child. The moment didn’t last long, but it is still somewhere in my head- a bit of Charlie, frozen, crystalline, and Chbosky's words linger as I am unable to find a way to portray that exact phenomenon better myself.
I believe in books and their power to allow authors to change a person’s mind or perspective into their own, however briefly. Every time I happen upon a well-crafted image or comparison in a novel or short story, I believe that the author has shown me exactly what they wanted me to see about that person or place. I feel as though that author has
found a way to phrase a feeling, physical or emotional, that is vague enough to apply outside of their own experience, but lines up perfectly with my own within the descriptive constraints that they have set.
The other lines did not click with me, but they fit into thousands of other teenagers’ experiences. While those readers may not have reacted to my line, I believe that they
experienced something similar to me upon reading their own most relevant lines. A bit of Charlie is within their consciousness now- the way of phrasing their emotive reaction entirely his, though the emotion itself is theirs.
I want to write novels, not for the sake of appealing to every reader, but in order to find ways to speak to thousands of readers, even if I only succeed with one sentence out of a million. I want to learn what makes a person pause in their page-turning and re-read a phrase. I want to find what in me is echoed around the world in teenagers and young adults and mothers and children and grandparents.
I believe that given time and effort, I can.
Image from www.stockfreeimages.com
This I Believe is my Dream Job
I read Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower during my senior year of high school. I was not overly impressed. An avowed book critic, I found several of the characters unbelievable and exaggerated, the language overly simplistic, and the many musical allusions unnecessary.
Why, then, did one phrase stick in my brain even through the writing of my review for my high school newspaper (700 words conveying my underwhelmedness) and beyond? Why did I feel compelled to see the movie given that, as strange and disappointingly predictable as I found the book, I couldn’t even imagine its narration translated coherently to screen?
In a book crammed full of lines that can and have been quoted endlessly by teenagers just aching for someone to listen to them and understand- lines like “We accept the love we think we deserve,” and “in that moment, I swear we were infinite”- I was drawn to a different theme.
I failed to identify with Charlie, Chbosky’s painfully introverted but disarmingly emotive teenaged narrator, except in one respect: his love of reading and the way he reacts to some writing.
Early on in the book, Charlie says, ““It's strange because sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book.” Even as the rest of the novel unfolded in typical young-adult fashion, I held on to that one line wherein Stephen Chbosky created a perfect clarity within my mind. Yes, at that moment, I read his book and thought I was that screwed-up boy-child. The moment didn’t last long, but it is still somewhere in my head- a bit of Charlie, frozen, crystalline, and Chbosky's words linger as I am unable to find a way to portray that exact phenomenon better myself.
I believe in books and their power to allow authors to change a person’s mind or perspective into their own, however briefly. Every time I happen upon a well-crafted image or comparison in a novel or short story, I believe that the author has shown me exactly what they wanted me to see about that person or place. I feel as though that author has
found a way to phrase a feeling, physical or emotional, that is vague enough to apply outside of their own experience, but lines up perfectly with my own within the descriptive constraints that they have set.
The other lines did not click with me, but they fit into thousands of other teenagers’ experiences. While those readers may not have reacted to my line, I believe that they
experienced something similar to me upon reading their own most relevant lines. A bit of Charlie is within their consciousness now- the way of phrasing their emotive reaction entirely his, though the emotion itself is theirs.
I want to write novels, not for the sake of appealing to every reader, but in order to find ways to speak to thousands of readers, even if I only succeed with one sentence out of a million. I want to learn what makes a person pause in their page-turning and re-read a phrase. I want to find what in me is echoed around the world in teenagers and young adults and mothers and children and grandparents.
I believe that given time and effort, I can.