Wednesday, June 07, 2006

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.

5 comments:

MonkeyMom said...

I'm commenting on my own thing...but do you ever go back and read a blog and realize that you made a joke that you didn't mean to, but it totally works?

...dangling carrot. *snork*

towwas said...

Aunt TOWWAS says she read Da Vinci Code in two hours. She dismissed it as "a thrillah." She talks like that. But she used to be an English professor, so I believe her.

MonkeyMom said...

Yeah, it was definitely a quick read and probably lighter/fluffier than I expected. Definitely some ideas I could have chewed on if I'd wanted to, but meh...

Two hours though? No, I'm just not that good... I bow to Aunt TOWWAS...

Cheryl said...

I am this way too. It's an illness. If I get into a book I forgo sleep and neglect my child until I finish. It's foder for future therapt I am sure. I am a suckah for a good story.

grrrbear said...

I find this happening to me too, but not consistantly. For example, it does happen when I'm reading a book that I really enjoy or have been looking forward to (e.g. Harry Potter, Devil in the White City) but if the book is only fair to middling I can go for long stretches between chapters.

I used to love all the books I read, and wonder sometimes if I'm becoming a book "snob" since how there are some books I *own* that I couldn't finish.