On Friday, I picked up a book that I’d not finished on an earlier attempt. I’d kinda liked it, but it hadn’t gripped me, and so I’d kept going in fits and starts. I wanted to read – I really did. A close friend had kept recommending it to me, and asking for progress updates. So I wanted to give him those updates. I wanted to read it. But, as I say, I’d hit a block with the book last year, and not picked it up since.

On Friday, I picked up a book. I read the next chapter. And I realised why people sometimes talk of trigger warnings. Why, and how, a series of words can affect someone so deeply. A character died, and the process of embalming was begun. At the end of this, the character awoke, with coins seared into his skin, across the whole of his body. Not in the pleasing half-truth of undeath, but alive.

As I read those words, my skin crawled. Every inch of my nerve endings sang out in a concord of empathy. I felt the coins weighing him down, and I felt the the pain. And I had to go for a lie down. I’m not a man who is unreactive to books. There certain books which I can guarantee will make me cry, because they have, every time I’ve read them. When Inspector Morse died, I cried buckets. Deric Longden can always make me cry. But I have never had such a visceral, knee-jerk reaction to the written word before.

At first, I was angry with myself. How could I let this affect me like this. I, the pillar of strength. I shouldn’t be reduced to a shivering pile of flesh by mere words. How dare my self be so weak, so incapable? Then I moved on, and I was angry with the person who recommended it to me. How could they not think that scene would affect me like that? How could they not have realised the black hole there at the centre, which normally I dance round with enough vim and vigour that most don’t even see it? Then, once again I moved on to anger at myself. How could I be so small? How did I expect my friend to know it would affect me like this, when I didn’t know myself? How could I expect them to see the darkness, when normally I do a pretty good job of hiding it even from myself?

And then, as quickly as it came, it was gone. I vented the feelings. I cried into my pillow. I said my piece, and then it was gone. No bottling it up to add to the quiet darknesses of the soul. No pretending it wasn’t there. just the admission of anger. The momentary venting of anger. And as suddenly as it came, the absence of anger. And I read on. Despite how it made me feel in those few paragraphs, it really is a good book. Eminently readable.

If it’s of any interest, I would certainly recommend reading the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. They really are books with feels.