Hi all,
Please see Sunday's post if this concept doesn't make any sense to you; the rest of us are marching on.
Quarterfinals
8) Commuovere (Italian) – verb, to be moved in a heartwarming way, usually relating to a story that moved you to tears.
I believe I dismissed this word at first glance because it read too much like 'feel good story'; a translation felt entirely unnecessary. I quickly came to my senses and acknowledged that there was a significant difference - this word expresses the way we feel about a story rather than forcing us to guess about its intrinsic qualities. We need more words like this, that help us bring our experience out of the shadows, where it forever lurks anytime the civilized folks suppress their emotions under the guise of a grave discussion about the work's permanent, inarguable characteristics.
We ask each other - was the book good? I always want to snap - who cares? We should ask instead - what did you feel about the book you read? Or, how did the book make your life better? Of course, maybe we don't ask, because we are terrified of what someone might say; we should be all in, we should be fascinated with each other. We can do so much better than resorting to clichés like 'feel good story', an expression that sounds like a C+ book report from a kindergarten; this phrase reinforces the divide of experience and expression that has stunted so many around me. Is it so bad to say a story made us feel good, so bad that we prefer to hide our feelings by attributing them to an inherent quality of the work, as if we had no choice in the matter, or that anyone else would have felt the same?
So, I thank the Italians for commuovere, a word that forces us to describe our feelings and live in our experience, where the walls are made of see-through skin; it's the house, the home that we are in, for all our time.
Back early next week to wrap up the quarterfinals - thanks for reading.
