I´ve reached page 130 in the novel Theodore Boone by John Grisham.
While I was reading this week I was focused on the mood that John Grisham wanted to create and how he wrote to convey emotions to the reader. There were some moments when I felt that the novel affected me more than others, and for that reason I noticed when his strategies worked.
Since I wrote my last post Theodore has spent most of his spare time in court, and it's a particular reason why this trial is more interesting than the others Theo has watched. This trial is about a murder, the first in Strattenburg for years. The murdered victim is named Myra Duffy, and the suspect is her husband, Peter Duffy. I lost concentration after a while when I read about the long trial, but the author has a few tricks of leading me into the book again by making me feel a curtain feeling and by increasing the tension. One of these moments when I'm paying more attention to what's happening is when there is a special sign that something big is about to happen. An example is when one of the lawyers is raising their voices. Theo reacts in some kind of way, and then I know that they're saying something important and I become more excited.
As if the trial wasn't exciting enough, Theo finds out that one person knows the whole truth about the murder. But there is a catch. The person who saw it all can't testify because he is an illegal immigrant. He knows that he could be an important witness, but he doesn't want to be sent back to El Salvador. Even though Theodore knows that he shouldn't get too involved in this, he decides to meet this person and that makes me get the feeling of uncertainty. It's very tense when they meet each other, he doesn't even want to say his name and he is very skeptical about talking about what he saw. He doesn't know if he can trust Theo, and Theo has to say many times that he will keep this as a secret before he starts talking.
It's not only a terrible situation for the man who knows about the murder, the author is also describing Theo's feelings about this. Many pages of the novel are only about Theodore's feelings of despair, it's a difficult secret to keep for him. This part of the book is meant to be sad. Since he became aware of the situation this is the only thing that he can think about. His credibility could be ruined, his family could be harmed, the person from El Salvador could be forced to testify and then put in jail. I get the feeling of performance anxiety is because he's expected to come up with a solution to this problem, but he can't. This shapes his nightmares and this feeling is followed by hopelessness. I asked myself if I could figure out a way to solve it, and when I realized that I couldn't figure out something either the feeling of hopelessness grew stronger. I can relay to this feeling like many others, because there are moments when the feeling of not being good enough leads to feeling hopeless. I know that it's not a coincidence, I'm sure that the author is well aware of that many people can relay to that feeling even though you haven't been in a situation like Theo. It's not an unusual feeling for many people because of all everyday problems that can occur.
While I was reading this week I was focused on the mood that John Grisham wanted to create and how he wrote to convey emotions to the reader. There were some moments when I felt that the novel affected me more than others, and for that reason I noticed when his strategies worked.
Since I wrote my last post Theodore has spent most of his spare time in court, and it's a particular reason why this trial is more interesting than the others Theo has watched. This trial is about a murder, the first in Strattenburg for years. The murdered victim is named Myra Duffy, and the suspect is her husband, Peter Duffy. I lost concentration after a while when I read about the long trial, but the author has a few tricks of leading me into the book again by making me feel a curtain feeling and by increasing the tension. One of these moments when I'm paying more attention to what's happening is when there is a special sign that something big is about to happen. An example is when one of the lawyers is raising their voices. Theo reacts in some kind of way, and then I know that they're saying something important and I become more excited.
As if the trial wasn't exciting enough, Theo finds out that one person knows the whole truth about the murder. But there is a catch. The person who saw it all can't testify because he is an illegal immigrant. He knows that he could be an important witness, but he doesn't want to be sent back to El Salvador. Even though Theodore knows that he shouldn't get too involved in this, he decides to meet this person and that makes me get the feeling of uncertainty. It's very tense when they meet each other, he doesn't even want to say his name and he is very skeptical about talking about what he saw. He doesn't know if he can trust Theo, and Theo has to say many times that he will keep this as a secret before he starts talking.
It's not only a terrible situation for the man who knows about the murder, the author is also describing Theo's feelings about this. Many pages of the novel are only about Theodore's feelings of despair, it's a difficult secret to keep for him. This part of the book is meant to be sad. Since he became aware of the situation this is the only thing that he can think about. His credibility could be ruined, his family could be harmed, the person from El Salvador could be forced to testify and then put in jail. I get the feeling of performance anxiety is because he's expected to come up with a solution to this problem, but he can't. This shapes his nightmares and this feeling is followed by hopelessness. I asked myself if I could figure out a way to solve it, and when I realized that I couldn't figure out something either the feeling of hopelessness grew stronger. I can relay to this feeling like many others, because there are moments when the feeling of not being good enough leads to feeling hopeless. I know that it's not a coincidence, I'm sure that the author is well aware of that many people can relay to that feeling even though you haven't been in a situation like Theo. It's not an unusual feeling for many people because of all everyday problems that can occur.
The strategy that Jon Grisham is using creates the right mood at the right occasion which is important for this novel as any other. Sometimes when I don't keep up with the story and lose concentration for a while the author makes me more interested of the book again by increasing the tense. It's evidently working because it's making me more interested of the book again, and it's one of the reasons why I'm still able to read without wanting the book to be completed.
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