Ever since our discussion on Thursday, I've been thinking about the different ways that we react emotionally to literature. More specifically, I've been wondering if the strength of our reactions is more a factor of the novel itself, or if literary empathy is a personal trait of the reader.  It's obvious that different readers get different things out of a narrative, but is the place we get to emotionally when reading somewhere that the novel takes us or somewhere we go ourselves?

Christopher's story seems to spark strong and distinct emotional reactions in many of us, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that the way that I feel about Christopher is exactly the way I feel about Zach. Zach, an autistic young man and member of one of the synagogs I attended back in DC, is one of the sweetest and most difficult people I've ever met. I attended his Bar Mitzvah a few years back, and the way his smile after he got off the bimah made me feel is the same way Christopher's declaration that now he can do anything at the end of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time did.

Does the fact that this novel is dragging up emotions that I've experienced before rather than causing a brand new emotional reaction make it less valid, somehow? A novel can't speak to everyone, but the thought that a story could only speak to those with a specific experience doesn't seem quite right. For a novel to be powerful in its own right, it would seem that its emotional content would have to be somewhat independent from the reader's past experience, if not necessarily completely detached. Throughout The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, I wonder who is doing more of the emotional heavy lifting: the novel or my own past?