Writing and empathy

I was reading the current Bookmarks Magazine and saw a short ad for the book, "Healing Through Empathy: An Expanded Edition" by Dr. Francis Adams. In the short blurb for this book which I have not read or even seen, it states the book "illustrates through actual case histories the vital importance of the doctor-patient relationship and the role of empathy in healing. Dr. Adams calls for a balance between medical science and humanistic medicine. Suggestions are offered for finding the right physician."

It sounded familiar and looked up the name of Patch Adams from the film of the same name and his name is Hunter Adams but the direction of caring for one's patients follows the same path. Empathy is the ability to share the feelings of the patients and to have compassion for another human being. I remember the best doctors and even teachers in my life were those who had empathy towards those who they served.

What about writers? In the books that I enjoyed the most, I remember reading books by authors who seemed to care about the people in their books. Indeed, most writers are those who can put themselves in other people's shoes ,so to speak. I can only speak for myself, but I have often put myself in different characters imagining what it feels like to be older, disabled, a man, a child again and so forth. You can't do that unless you have some empathy for the character to some degree. There are writers out there who have no sympathy towards other human beings and we have all read stories by them. Their characters seem wooden and lifeless. They don't care what happens to them.

J.K. Rowland stated in an interview that when she wrote the demise of a character in one of her books she would cry and get depressed. I have felt the same. Some stories leave me cold and unmoved. I remember reading the book, "The World According to Garp"by John Garner in which Garp's son is killed in an auto accident that left me so upset I could not go to work the next day. I was reading it in unison with others in the nation and more than a few people had to go see their therapists that day. Some comedian made a joke about it. I did not think he was funny.

I don't think an author has to feel empathy to be successful. There are some writers who are very cold and very successful although the ones who are empathic towards their characters outweigh those who are not. I like murder mysteries and appreciate the fact that murderers get caught but not all murder mysteries are those in which the murderers are brought to justice. An exception would be the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsey. Dexter is a sociopath with no feelings but everyone else around him does feel and the reader does not want Dexter to be caught as Dexter kills the bad guy. There is Tom Riley by Patricia Highsmith. There is Marquise de Merteuil from "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos and so much more by writers who feel sympathy and those who do not.

Of course, the obvious inference is for the writer to be honest. When I was a kid, there was a girl I knew who would coo over kittens because that was what girls were supposed to do. But I happened to know she hated them because they were dirty according to her and she hated the way they smelled. She was trying to cultivate an image. I have no idea what happened to her. Maybe she married a veterinarian. Who knows? Still, at the same time, I had professors in my college classes that made fun of writers who loved children and puppies. There was this poem about a child who died when he went back into a burning house to get his mother's purse and died. The professor just stood there and made fun of it and I was fighting tears for a child in the ghetto in New York City who actually did that.

I like poems and stories from writers who care about people, nature, animals and life itself. I like writers who allow themselves to be tied up on the Golden Gate Bridge as one did recently for a cause. I like another who wrote poems about nature and his confusion about his sexual identity. I like the Beat Writers. I never read writers who seem to be parroting what is popular and condemning people for one belief or another. I like writers who have empathy and like my doctor because he cares about his patients. I care about my characters too.