A Serious Author

A recent movie was made retelling the story of the man, Job, from the Bible. This movie was called "A Serious Man", and it was a comedy. A dark comedy yes, but a comedy none the less. Still, when you read the book of Job you don't really feel like laughing. Maybe, in no small way, this is why we, sometimes, fail as authors. Because you know, in many ways, the movie was right. 

     Life is a comedy, and that is why we do not always laugh.  If we were to look at some of our faults  and troubles from the perspective of a film they would seem much more comical at times. For instance, what if I told you the story of a musician who feared God and everything was right in his world, and he feared God so much that the Lord finally blessed him with the piano of his dreams. The movers begin hoisting it up into his loft apartment with a series of pulleys and his loving family watched from the street below, smiling all the while, patting one another on the back as they gave thanks for their many blessings. Then the piano falls on his family and kills them to the key of E minor. At that very moment, the "Precious Moments" candles in his living room catch fire to a poem that one of his children had written about how all dogs go to heaven even the one they just lost yesterday to cancer, and the whole apartment burns to the ground. As terrible as it sounds, one can't help but chuckle at the thought. When we as authors write we often try too hard to tell a story that we hope will simply, "lift people up." So we take the piano away, even though in Job's life it certainly wasn't taken away for quite some time. Or we doctor up the trials to make them more bearable. This can often lead to a false redemption. 

     Flannery O' Conner once received a letter from a grandmother in California telling her that tired readers don't want to come home and read a story like hers. They want to be "lifted up" at the end of the day. O' Conner replied that if her heart was in the right place, her stories would lift her up, but she knew the old woman was looking for the kind of story that brings Timmy and Lassie home safely, always, even though there are some bumps in the road.  I would argue that a good story will have all elements to it, not just the end where everything is made right again. A good comedy is a dark one that can make you weep as you laugh, and often ends in the key of E minor.