This past week I finished reading "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera. Upon reading the last sentence of the book, I stopped. I read it and I reread it about four times. “That was it,” I said to myself, “That’s all there is.” I couldn’t get it through my head. I had finished the book, that was for sure, but I couldn’t seem to understand that there wasn’t more. A wave of quaint sadness washed over me and all of a sudden, I was alone with my thoughts. I would probably never “see” Tomas or Tereza or Franz or Sabina ever again. It felt like I had lost a good friend.
If you’ve ever really felt like you’ve clicked with a book before, you’ll probably know what I’m failing to accurately describe. Books, especially meaningful books, are like friends that tell us all their secrets and trust us to keep them. All the while, they implicitly tug at our heartstrings and play with our emotions. Deep down, we begin to feel a bond forming and we fall in love before they disappear, but not before imparting one last dose of wisdom or charm.
That terrible melancholy feeling we feel when we finish a good book is one of the most bittersweet experiences we as humans can have. While good literature can never compare to actual companionship, the time we spend alone with books often can be crucial to appreciating our own real-life relationships. Every time we really connect with a book, we begin to see ourselves in the characters we like. We begin to feel a sense of camaraderie with the characters in the protagonist’s circle of friends and they quickly become our own friends, despite them being fictional. We as lovers of fiction daydream about when we get to pick up our books and fantasize about what will happen next to our beloved fictional friends.
All of these feelings should sound familiar and they should sound painfully nostalgic to anyone who has had to say goodbye to a well-loved cast of characters. While the books you love will always be around for you to read and reread again, the initial feeling of finishing a book you love is so bittersweet. I’ve written about my final moments with the "Harry Potter" series before, but I can remember sitting in silence after closing the back cover of "The Deathly Hallows" and not knowing quite what to do with myself. While I was happy for finally committing to a book series that I happened to fall in love with, I was immediately very distraught. After six odd months of on-and-off reading, I didn’t have a new book to look forward to. There was just a sad silence in my still aching heart.
But after a while, I moved on to new books and I still think very fondly of my time spent with that series. I can always go back and revisit my friends and in a way, that’s comforting if not a little bit sad. So maybe I will see Tomas and Tereza and Sabina and Franz again someday but not right now. And you know what? You’ll see your literary friends sometimes too.
