Thrill seekers and thrillers…
From a line of hundreds of people trying to climb Mt. Everest or die trying, to an eighty-year-old taking a birthday parachute jump and getting more than she bargained for, to a young man that thinks that kayaks were made to go over huge waterfalls, our news media does an excellent job of portraying the active thrill seekers in our society and the world. These recent events show that humans’ thirst for thrills and adventure is still around albeit not as common as it used to be. After all, we have some good substitutes. Many people will not view a movie without spiffy special effects, car chases, shootouts, and, yes, plenty of sex and violence. Video games allow pubescent teens to chase full-breasted women and blow the heads off people, both good and bad.
There are two kinds of thrill seekers. The first needs the physical situation to generate the adrenalin—the climbers, the jumpers, and the hobbyist stunt men. The second survives just fine stretched out in a recliner participating more vicariously in the thrills from his home theatre system, video games…and books! I’m a writer. I don’t make a living writing—not yet—but I depend on the more passive thrill seekers in general and book lovers in particular. I’m also an avid reader. I’d rather not subject myself to situations where I might die or be physically harmed. I’ve never rode a roller coaster even. I can imagine the thrill people receive when doing it but I prefer to read about it. In fact, I prefer books over movies and definitely over video games.
I can receive all the adrenalin rush I need from my reading or writing. I do go beyond that, enjoying a good intellectual debate or having fun in a social gathering. I’m also happily married. But books have been a part of my life since I learned to read. I have learned from them. Moreover, ever since I started raiding my brother’s sci-fi collection, I have transported myself into multiverses that stretch my imagination. I daresay I couldn’t have become a scientist without this imagination. In addition, I could never have become the writer that I am now.
While it is true that I’ve also had more adventure in my life than the average American, this adventure was not a consequence of thrill seeking. My years in Colombia began because I couldn’t find a teaching post in the U.S. I saw Uruguay in the time of the Tupamaros. I was in Paraguay in the time of Stroessner. I visited Chile in better times when Allende had just been elected. I watched as the Stasi guards’ dogs sniffed under the train cars in the stop before entering West Berlin. These were adventures, not thrills. They were events I chose to experience more out of intellectual curiosity.
I love to observe people and cultures. I can’t imagine doing this with a huge adrenalin rush. My observations often enter into my writing, improving scenes, characters, and dialog to a point where it’s possible that the reader can identify with them more than I do. These elements might be part of a frantic and super human effort of the protagonists to survive, but the improvements hopefully increase the reader’s adrenalin rush. A thriller author writes page-turners, although the latter term might go the way of the dinosaurs as eReaders become more common. If his book inspires a reader to go out and try it himself (the experiences that are legal, of course, like parachute jumping), so be it. Even better, though, is the occurrence where the reader thinks, “I don’t have to experience this directly—reading about it is plenty good enough!”
I’m currently reading Ian Rankin’s Resurrection Men. (When I say reading, not reviewing, I mean that I’m reading for pleasure without any intention of writing a review, although I might write one later.) The author has won the Edgar Award for best novel—that means (1) he writes well and (2) the book I’m reading is a mystery. It’s certainly not a thriller. That might be my problem. I like thrillers better than mysteries. The former are perfect for recliner-chair thrill seekers with their fast-paced action and cliff-hanging situations. They are the margaritas and cuba libres of writing. The latter are often slow-paced mental challenges, building to a climax and denouement often not expected, although the good writer of mysteries has provided the clues. They are the single malts and the fine cognacs where slow sipping is indicated.
In other words, I find Resurrection Men slow going. Interesting, well written, but slow going. Beyond the problem that it’s not a thriller, I might have a cultural hang-up. The book is very British (actually Scottish). Sometimes I struggle with Rankin’s language more than when I read a novel in Spanish, more so than Cien Años de Soledad, say (One Hundred Years of Solitude by Garcia-Marquez). But I digress. The important point is that I’m 142 pages into it and still looking for some action. Yeah, I know, I’m just a jaded American.
I like my thrillers shaken and stirred with a good dose of sci-fi, if possible. This can range from Tom Clancy’s military thrillers (Hunt for Red October is still the best), often filled with present-day gizmos and weapons, to dystopian thrillers where humanity is about to go over a cliff, and to space operas where Clancy’s subs, planes, and tanks are replaced by particle cannons and ray guns. As an avid reader, I tend to choose this kind of book, seeking my thrills in my recliner with a finger of Jameson’s at my side (I like my whiskey distilled three times). Most of my exercise was turning the page and raising my glass. Now it’s paging on my Kindle and raising my glass. Some might object that these are vicarious thrills experienced via the lives of the characters of the thriller. This is true, even in my own writing. But it works for me!
In libris libertas….
