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Tom Rachman's debut novel recounts the inclement lives of Roman journalists who work for an international newspaper of the English language. They cry, they laugh, they deal with spouses having affairs, they deal will almost having affairs themselves, and they produce a newspaper that sits next to morning coffees around the world. Amazing, isn't it? Equally as amazing is the fact that, despite such palpable differences as age, financial situation, and employment status, each of them experience the same foibles, follies, mirth. This is a novel composed of different anecdotes that follow different staff members, and each anecdote does indeed show mirth and melancholy, maybe not in the form of crying and laughing, but the same emotion nevertheless. The partial disappointment shown when a spouse has an affair? That is present in each as well. The self-indulgence and possible revenge present in having an affair oneself is there too. Altogether, the sole phenomenon that infringes upon uniformity is rudimentary the experiences where such emotions are incensed.
In Disney World, I witnessed so many different people congregating in one area for the sake of innocent entertainment. And whether their parents were soothing them in French or English or Spanish or Pig Latin, for all I know, babies did cry in distress at the ear-splitting sound of fireworks over Cinderella's Castle. Parents had mirth dance in their hearts while watching their kids experience such mirth fly from ice-cream into their mouths. The wealthy, suited CEO fresh out of a convention was just as overwhelmed on Tower of Terror as the farmer who saved change for three years to grant his family a day at the park.
Human emotions are the same for all humanity; the only thing that changes is the human who experiences them, and in what life they are experienced. Something tells me that Mr. Disney knew that.
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