Why I Will Not Read Or See "The Fault In Our Stars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

                                     As someone who takes pride in keeping my pulse on the literary beat, I know I should at least read the book.  Not only can't I, I won't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                     Since 1967, when I watched my Uncle Everett, my mother's younger brother, whom she was very close to, die of cancer at the now relatively young age of 51, out in Banta, California, I have been haunted by the specter of cancer.  Twelve years later, my own mother, at a time in my life I felt I was not ready to face this--but, then what time IS good????--died of the same thing.  My father's brother, Uncle Jack died of bone cancer the following year.  All this while still in my twenties.

                                     I remember sitting through the Meryl Streep movie, "One True Thing."  Now, you all know how much I love MERYL, and she was spot on, but I have to confess, there was one moment, when she was on the bathroom floor, in agony, where I actually contemplated walking out of the theater.  It was just too much to bear.

                                    If you read--or have read--my posting, several weeks back, on the "Sweeney Todd"  I saw, you will see how cancer and my mother's passing hang over that show for me--especially in one haunting lyric.

                                     When I was in high school, Erich Segal's "Love Story was the weepie book and film of my generation.  Now it is "The Fault In Our Stars."  I am sure it is a competent work, maybe even a fine one.  Maybe even better than "Love Story," which, like everyone else, I read and wept over, and did so again, with the film.  But, I was fifteen years old then.  Now, I know, as this current book demonstrates, that being young does not necessarily omit one form cancer, but, if one is young and does not have it, it is still a time in one's life where The End is not thought about, because, at that point, one has barely begun.  So, reading about something that seems so distant, and so far away from the experience, is easy.

                                        I am 59, today; in November, I will be 60!  The inevitability of certain things, of the possibility of cancer, is more of a reality now, than when I read "Love Story."  Having lost loved ones already, the idea of them losing me through my departure, and vice versa, is just too much for me to bear.  So, I am going to refrain from "The Fault In Our Stars."  The time has passed when I could stomach it.

                                         I don't need to be reminded, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!