By Jean Knight Pace and James Pace
I’m quitting on this at about 1/3 through. It’s very, very introspective, which is odd because a lot of it is written by the paramedic’s wife rather than by him. Sometimes he starts an essay and she finishes it up; other times she writes it all as if he tells it to her. She’s a good writer but the emphasis is on the feelings of the paramedic, not on the details of the cases he works.
Why am I quitting? Hard to say—other than it’s grim and gritty and downright depressing. It’s not that the authors are completely negative about the people they deal with, except of course they can’t help but be a little sarcastic about the guy who said his leg hurt but walked to the ambulance, told them he needed to go to an out-of-state hospital because there was a warrant for his arrest, then when they arrived at the hospital, put on a great big show about his suffering and had to be carried into the ER. (Sorry, I might have gotten the details a little off there, but you get the idea.)
But even a weirdo story like that was told with no sense of humor at all. And I think that’s why I’m giving up—I don’t mind reading about the sad side of life but I don’t particularly care to wallow in it. It’s like the theme of every essay so far is to describe all the awful, useless, pointless mental suffering that people endure. It’s getting me down.
No comments:
Post a Comment