Almost done

Have you ever felt, when finishing a book, like you're letting go of a dear friend? The same feeling overtook me now as when I came to the end of Return of the King so many years ago. All of these characters who you adore, their experiences, their trials and tribulations that you covertly become a part of. You're there with them, living vicariously through their fictional lives, until finally the story is over and you're left with an empty feeling inside. Not to say that I believe fictional characters exist in real life but the power of storytelling is so emotional, raw and personal and by making others want to follow the story, by making them want to root for or jeer against a character, makes in essence the story itself immortal.

I would never tell you if Harry Potter lives or dies (read it your damn self, hehehehe) but the book is by far the best in the series and Rowling weaves a wonderful story, cast over the span of almost ten years, that makes it so hard to let it all go. Her tale of the unlikely hero and his band of mates fighting a war bubbling up between the very good and the darkest evil is a story that has been told time and time again, but with different characters, different scenarios and different methods. Everyone in the end wants the good to prevail, but what is good if there is no evil?

I know this might be a boring post to some of you, but seeing where none of my friends have finished the book, I needed an outlet to just talk about the overwhelming emotion that something as simple as a series of children's books can create. A long, long time ago, people sat in front of fires and told stories orally to scare their children or to teach them lessons or to simply put them to sleep. Over centuries, those same stories were passed from generation to generation until the ability to write them down arrived. Books.

I grew up on books. I used to read several at a time, and even back then, I knew that I wanted to be a storyteller. But now in these times, where reading books and telling stories has become practically obsolete since the creation of TV, movies, VCRs, DVRs and the internet, it is good to realize that one woman who dreamed up the wonderfully flawed characters of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley may have jump-started the simple but beautiful concept that everyone should just read a book every now and then and let themselves fall victim to the magical telling of stories.