Gulp

I read books the way an alcholic drinks vodka, minus the clever paper bag concealment. I've been on a jury duty vigil these last two days and in that time I've both started and finished DaVinci Code...consuming it in big heaving gulps with barely a breath between chapters. It's probably a book that bears consideration...thought for its assertions and implications. It's thick with history that would be interesting to dig around and verify...but we'll see. I might just let it be...and enjoy the movie knowing the full content of the book.

See? This is why I don't read more often. I'm too greedy about it. I can't seem to do it patiently. It's all in one fell swoop, start to finish, with barely a pause for breathing and no tolerance for the slow spots. I remember reading Jayne Eyre years ago and getting bored with one bit, so I flipped forward to a random page in a later chapter and read a paragraph or two...ooh! I wonder how they got there...and that propelled me forward again. I'm certain I had to do that with The Magic Mountain too (no amount of phallic innuendo could keep me on pace for that one without some dangling carrot).

I think reading is supposed to be more about the journey than the destination...I wonder, sometimes, what larger implications loom in the fact that, for me, it's not.