TCH News

Issue date: 3/10/08 Section: Opinion

There are good books. There are bad books. And then there are books that were good when you picked them up at age fifteen, giggling over how raunchy the text seemed to your sheltered little bubble of a head. This book inevitably became a bible in the hands of na've teens dreaming that their lives could mirror those of quirky, mature, off-kilter characters.

"If you're young enough, hearing a curse word or seeing someone flip the bird makes the bearer of vulgarity an object of wide-eyed awe," says Frankih Kalberger, a snappy member of our baffling culture. "Young teens almost always idolize older, smarter, dazzling teenagers. At least that fact never changes."

Impressionable girls do tend to grow up, though. Things fill out, fill up, and certainly get fed up, and then you're stuck with a young woman at nineteen itching for something interesting to read, turning to her dusty bookshelves to try an old favorite on for size.

And that is when a good book at fifteen turns into a head-cocked, "Are-you-serious?!" book at nearly-twenty.

"Nothing is built to last anymore," says Megan Garlette, a student only recently sprung from her small-town bubble.

The title of this book, now found only in na've memories, is unimportant. This book could be a different novel for somebody else. It could be a film or a television show, a car or a food dish or even a mindset. But somewhere in everybody is a form of disappointment generated from something beloved losing its appeal once revisited.

"I had this really amazing video game when I was a kid," says Robert Brooks, offering a male perspective on nostalgic disappointment. "It was the kind that you could play for hours without blinking, I guess. I found the thing a little while ago, maybe ten years since I had last touched it, and yeah, technology has gotten better and I've grown up some, but even ignoring those two things, the game was crap."

Avoiding any philosophical dribble about the decline of our culture at the cold, cold hands of some flavor-of-the-week demon, there is a distinct point to be made. Maybe about individual human beings, maybe about the mindset of a country. Maybe even about the dismal knowledge of how quickly things become antiquated these days.

"I think that people like their bubbles," says Garlette. "Their bubbles don't have time to pop if things never slow down long enough to allow that to happen."

Or it could be much simpler than that. Books are no longer written to stand the test of time, and made-for-the-moment movies are forgotten mere minutes after the DVD pops out of the player. If people wanted longevity, publishers and producers would be forced to give us that to stay in business. They would certainly stop publishing easily-forgotten trite, start making points that mattered and lasted and lingered, but they don't, so what does that say?

To quote songwriter Kevin Devine, "And if our constant choice is skimming past the writing on the wall/Then I'm sad to say we're lost and I'm embarrassed for us all."

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