Today I sat down and read a book. Start to finish, beginning to end, I opened it and then I closed it.
Except that that's not exactly how it went. For the first third of the book, I put it down every few pages, and thought. I don't know if anyone else does this. I have no idea how anyone else reads. All I know is how I read, and sometimes I just read and sometimes read and think and read and think. The thinking is always about what I've been reading. Usually it's when I read something that's not easy, because reading easy things gets boring after a while. But if I'm reading about important, powerful stuff I have to stop every now and again because I have to give myself time to process it and there's always the chance I'll break down crying if I don't.
I realise I'm talking in vague generalities, but for some reason this is the best way for me to put it. Reading is such an integral part of me that I can't write about it objectively, because I instantly know what I'm thinking, I never have to spell it out for anyone else. This is why this blog has been dead for two months, because I read books, and think about them, and write about them in my head, but I never actually type them out; why bother, when I know exactly how I feel?
And let me tell you, I read some books recently and then I had me some thoughts about those books. I read the new Thursday Next novel, and was highly tickled by it, I read a rather terrible Russian crime/mystery and have yet to finish it, I read Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler and I hate it.
That is a good thing to talk about.
I hate Raymond Chandler.
He writes very, very well. He writes achingly, in a manner that evokes a world that I will never go to, but know like the back of my hand because of his writing. I read Dashiell Hammett four-five years ago, and that went like a dream. This is somehow different, maybe because it has not been that long since I finished it. For some reason, unknowable but true, I hate Chandler. And I will happily, happily read The Long Good-Bye, and write about that, too.
I read Witches Abroad, by Terry Pratchett. See, I have now only two more books by Terry Pratchett I have not read. Just after finishing my exams, I decided that this was enough of a life event that I could justify to myself a classic Pratchett. Now I only have Lords and Ladies and Wyrd Sisters left. Yes, I know it was stupid to buy Witches Abroad having not read Wyrd Sisters, but it doesn't really matter. I enjoyed it so, so, so much. It was funny from page number one, all the way to the end. I am likely only to read the next one when some major life event happens. It'll probably be when I make my first million, or something. It's a Pratchett, I won't buy it for anything else.
I also read a series of terrible fantasy, called *clears throat, strikes appropriate pose* 'The Chronicles of the Black Company'. The blurb on the front assured me that it had singlehandedly changed the face of fantasy. It didn't. It was shit. Like, genuinely I don't know why I bought it and I should go and get my money back. But it was still fun, in the way that fantasy can be fun. In the middle of all the terribleness, there were some gems of wit and more importantly there were werepanthers being blown up. Who cares how bad the writing is?
Lastly, I'm also in the middle of a book about London, in which there is possibly the line of my month.
'Places make the best lovers'.
With that, I bid ye adieu.
Except that that's not exactly how it went. For the first third of the book, I put it down every few pages, and thought. I don't know if anyone else does this. I have no idea how anyone else reads. All I know is how I read, and sometimes I just read and sometimes read and think and read and think. The thinking is always about what I've been reading. Usually it's when I read something that's not easy, because reading easy things gets boring after a while. But if I'm reading about important, powerful stuff I have to stop every now and again because I have to give myself time to process it and there's always the chance I'll break down crying if I don't.
I realise I'm talking in vague generalities, but for some reason this is the best way for me to put it. Reading is such an integral part of me that I can't write about it objectively, because I instantly know what I'm thinking, I never have to spell it out for anyone else. This is why this blog has been dead for two months, because I read books, and think about them, and write about them in my head, but I never actually type them out; why bother, when I know exactly how I feel?
And let me tell you, I read some books recently and then I had me some thoughts about those books. I read the new Thursday Next novel, and was highly tickled by it, I read a rather terrible Russian crime/mystery and have yet to finish it, I read Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler and I hate it.
That is a good thing to talk about.
I hate Raymond Chandler.
He writes very, very well. He writes achingly, in a manner that evokes a world that I will never go to, but know like the back of my hand because of his writing. I read Dashiell Hammett four-five years ago, and that went like a dream. This is somehow different, maybe because it has not been that long since I finished it. For some reason, unknowable but true, I hate Chandler. And I will happily, happily read The Long Good-Bye, and write about that, too.
I read Witches Abroad, by Terry Pratchett. See, I have now only two more books by Terry Pratchett I have not read. Just after finishing my exams, I decided that this was enough of a life event that I could justify to myself a classic Pratchett. Now I only have Lords and Ladies and Wyrd Sisters left. Yes, I know it was stupid to buy Witches Abroad having not read Wyrd Sisters, but it doesn't really matter. I enjoyed it so, so, so much. It was funny from page number one, all the way to the end. I am likely only to read the next one when some major life event happens. It'll probably be when I make my first million, or something. It's a Pratchett, I won't buy it for anything else.
I also read a series of terrible fantasy, called *clears throat, strikes appropriate pose* 'The Chronicles of the Black Company'. The blurb on the front assured me that it had singlehandedly changed the face of fantasy. It didn't. It was shit. Like, genuinely I don't know why I bought it and I should go and get my money back. But it was still fun, in the way that fantasy can be fun. In the middle of all the terribleness, there were some gems of wit and more importantly there were werepanthers being blown up. Who cares how bad the writing is?
Lastly, I'm also in the middle of a book about London, in which there is possibly the line of my month.
'Places make the best lovers'.
With that, I bid ye adieu.
