And a compass wouldn't help at all – but fiction might

Le fils de l'épicier (The Grocer's Son), 2007

Happy March y'all! I'm currently procrastinating. But writing a blog post means it's structured procrastination, so we're good.

Last night I watched The Grocer's Son, a film I inherited on DVD from a former flatmate, like, six months ago. In short, it's about a young man who, having left his family years ago to live in la City de Light, returns to the country when his father falls ill. Taking over the family business of a travelling grocery shop, he finds himself quite unable to relate to the people he's meant to be helping, or his family, or... anyone, really.

I found myself really liking this movie. First off, the south of France is gorgeous and now I want to go there. I adored the snappy exchanges between the characters, and the visuals are beautiful. What got me most, however, was the humanity.

This film does an extraordinary job capturing human emotions and human behaviour, and doing this in a very subtle way. The three main themes I recognised were bitterness (Antoine is so caught up in his resentment of his parents that he's unable to relate to other people), pride (Antoine's father, forced to rest and unable to provide for his family and help the people who depend on his work, lashing out aggressively at the people closest to him) and something like fear of commitment (both Antoine and Claire are unable to fully acknowledge their mutual attraction, and it ends up in painful awkwardness and hurt feelings). There is certainly more – I also saw compassion, friendship, and a good deal of sorrow (especially in Antoine's mother, bless her soul). It's not an epic story, nor a hugely impressive one. But I enjoyed it thorougly, for the very reason that it wasn't outstanding. These things happen. Often.

The way people behave has been a mystery for as long as I can remember. The more people I meet, the more confused I get. Hell, my own actions and reactions barely make sense – quite often I find myself doing or saying something, while some part of my mind goes, "What is happening? Why is this happening? Why are you doing that? I DO NOT APPROVE."
I don't know if anybody else is as clueless as I am, but it isn't easy. Maybe that's why I go for pretty much anything that could possibly make some sense of this mess – psychology, cognitive neuroscience, social science. All my non-fiction books fit into one of those categories. (Anyone read The Examined Life? I only read it last week; during some chapters it was like a brilliant ray of light had come shining down straight from the heavens to illuminate the darkest corners of my clueless mind. Seriously though, it's good.)
But most of all, there is fiction.

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one."

— George R.R. Martin

I've had discussions with people who don't read fiction. I've had discussions with people who think studying literature is useless (the audacity!). Fact is, as much as it is entertainment, fiction is also the study of human nature. DEAL WITH IT, haters.

In fiction I find stories similar to my own – situations and people I can relate to. But even more importantly, I can find stories that are not my own at all. And this becomes invaluable when I can use it in my own life.

Take The Grocer's Son, for example. I'm not a very proud person, so I don't relate well to proud people. Watching the father in the movie, unable to work and provide for his family, take out his frustration on his loved ones, gave me a lightbulb moment. I understood him (somewhat) – and then I remembered scenes from my own life. Slightly similar situations, and people whose behaviour was a mystery, and BOOM – some assholes have just been humanised.
I'm not saying I've found the capital-T Truth in this movie, but there is the occasional discovery of parallels that makes it just slightly easier to at least imagine other people being people. And whether I'm right about them or not doesn't matter. What matters is that someone I've filed under "massive douchebag" becomes a lot easier to deal with once I entertain the idea that there might be an understandable reason for their behaviour. (Which, funnily, is what the capital-T Truth is about after all.)

Not everybody might know a Sherlock Holmes or a Severus Snape, or even a Walter White. But their stories will always be, in some small way, reminiscent of other people's stories, and by humanising them we can hope to find a way to humanise our own personal enemies and enigmas.

And if some "entertaining" movie, or novel, or comic, helps me with that?
Then, I say:

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PS: Yep, the first part of this post title is totally from this song.
PPS: I'm also mighty proud I managed to link to three fantastic and improving texts you should absolutely read within just one post. Must be the structured procastination.