Happiness In Novels And Monsters In The World

I recently posted this review of A Modern Witch by Deborah Geary.

The book is an excellent example of why we end stories with "happily ever after." Because "happily ever after" is really, really boring.

I was reminded of the contrast in the next book I've been reading, Written in Red: A Novel of the Others, by Anne Bishop. I'm not finished and thus not ready to post a review yet, but so far, it's a lovely book.

As I was reading along, rooting for the heroine, it dawned on me that I am pulling for her to lead a good, happy life. But, having just read an entire novel detailing a woman's good, happy life, I realize that is the last thing I want to read about. I really want conflict, suffering, loss, peril and tough choices. I just want it to all end up with "happily ever after."

I've never been much of a fan of those nihilistic novels where everyone is still sad and suffering in the end, because that's how life is and the book is gritty and real. If I want to know about people whose lives persist or end in suffering and despair I can turn on the news. The universality of suffering is not something I need to be reminded about. Who are those people that need that reminder? Would it be fun to live in their world, or really really boring? Or is is just that misery loves company? Again, there's plenty of miserable company in the real world. I don't need it in my literature.

Because I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy, I also regularly read books with monsters of some sort in them. I realize that this isn't a new observation, but the monsters of fantasy are really just us. They're a way of putting a neat wrapper around evil so that we can see it and compartmentalize it and reassure ourselves that it doesn't have anything to do with us. We are not monsters. The vampires and werewolves and demons -- they're the monsters! Of course, the most self-aware sci-fi and fantasy realizes this and generally finds some way of inverting that trope (hopefully in ways not as awful as Twilight). But it's a reminder to take with us back into the real world. There is nothing the monsters of our fantasies can possibly do, no act so vile or depraved, that it has not already been inflicted upon one human by another human in the real world. Why would we need to be afraid of vampires? There are humans out in the dark.