If you can't wish, why bother?

"The Adams and Eves used to say, We are what we eat, but I prefer to say, We are what we wish. Because if you can't wish, why bother?" -- Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood

If you can laugh, you're still alive. You haven't given up yet. -- Margaret Atwood 

I finished reading Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood today. I have this strange experience whenever I read an Atwood book though: when I finish reading I immediately have the urge to throw the book across the room. Seriously. Every time. It's the lack of a conclusion. I realize that this is intentional, that it is a post-modern technique, that it serves to draw attention to the fact that it is indeed a story, that it forces readers to not only be complicit in the creation of the story, but to realize that they have been complicit all along, but it still drives me nuts. You just want it all to work out. Or not work out. I'm not picky either way, I just want an ending. All that is not to say that the books aren't brilliant. I genuinely enjoy Atwood's books. They are challenging and provocative. They are also highly entertaining. I get sucked into the stories and invested in the characters. In fact, I enjoy her writing so much that I'm actually taking a whole directed studies course on it this semester. The Year of the Flood is brilliant. Especially if you have already read Oryx and Crake. Atwood has an incredible ability to pick out the trends in the world today and push them to their most ghastly extremes. The worlds she creates blow me away. This quote struck me though. In the midst of what is possibly the most dystopic world possible, there is suddenly this glimmer of...what? Hope? Human endurance? Promise? I'm not quite sure what the right word is, but the quote struck me. It reminded me of a quote I ran across a couple years ago when I was doing research for a paper on Oryx and Crake. Atwood was talking about the humour in the book, which is dark and doomsday-ish. There is something deep here, something that resonates in my life. The darkest times in my life have been times when I don't even have the ability to wish for something different. They were also the times when laughter is a foreign concept. Wishes and laughter. There is something here. Something that my mind is now mulling over.

This picture admittedly seems as if it has nothing to do with this post. However, there are two reasons I chose it. First, whenever I think of wishes or magic I think of light and sparkle. Second, it is actually a picture from the fireworks display in Disneyland, and Disney is intimately connected with the concept of wishes.