Something in conversation
recently reminded me of The Hotel New Hampshire. The book by
John Irving. I'm not a big Irving fan, and I stopped reading his new
books many years ago.
From what I can remember, The Hotel New
Hampshire is about a family that at some point in the story runs
a hotel in Vienna. And in the hotel, terrorists are plotting and
carrying out atrocities.
While reading the book, I found the
terrorists to be disturbing, but they did not make me uncomfortable enough to make me put the book down and walk away.
Does that mean I'm
indifferent to, or accepting of, terror in the world?
I have to ask
because while the terrorists were on one floor of the hotel doing
their plotting of evil, on another floor two of the main characters
of the book – a brother and sister in the family running the hotel,
give in to their attraction to each other and begin an incestuous
relationship.
And that bothered me enough to want to put down
the book and walk away!
But when I did that, I
could imagine John Irving laughing at me - “terror in the
world, okay, but incest! Whoa! That's just too distasteful
for your reading pleasure!”
It is the disappointment
in myself I was facing – the reality that I was more disturbed by
incest than terrorism.
It is one thing to have
to face that truth about myself, and it is quite another to have an
author rubbing my nose in it.
Yet I'll admit that is
what a good writer should do.
And I still feel the rub.
67 20150308 Hotel New
Hampshire
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