by Ben Spatz
There is something great about epics. I think it must be that they're so big. Of course, I'm only talking about good epics. There are bad epics, boring epics, but somehow I don't feel like giving them the name "epic." They are just really big works of art. When I say something is an "epic" work, for example a novel, I don't just mean that it's long but also that it's not boring. And to make a 1000-page story interesting is much more difficult than to make a 10-page story interesting. So part of the power is just that there's more goodness to be enjoyed. A good 1000 pages is a hundred times better than a good 10 pages.
But it's not just that. There are properties of epics that have to do with there largeness. It becomes unforgettable in a whole new way. A ten-hour play which avoids being boring will stick in your mind forever. If you see five two-hour plays, even if none of them are boring, you might forget them all. There is something about the size of the experience that makes it important. You have lived through it. You age with the characters. Maybe that's it. You change as the story changes. The time of day changes. Reading the _Lord of the Rings_ tragedy can take weeks. While you read it, the seasons change, your life changes. Your own journey parallels that of the characters. That's very different from entering a movie theater and leaving again two hours later, having been shown an entire story.