20 August 2006
Reading
It never ceases to amaze me when I read something really good. When something is written really well, no matter what it is, it seems like "I can relate to this". When you read something (book, poem, story, etc) and afterwards, you just sit there and think about what you just read, or when you try to put what you feel about it into words, and can't; that feeling is also nameless. I find that one of the most challenging things to do at various online writing sites is to tell someone who wrote something like that just how you feel about it. It's really not an easy task.
But also, it's the feeling you get when you sit in one spot for hours and just read. Not necessarily because you can't stop reading, but for any reason. I decided a few days ago that I would finish the Mayor Of Casterbridge which I had to read for school. I had, oh, half the book left. I sat for hours and just worked on that one goal of finishing it. And I have to say, I enjoyed the book more than I had been before.
It's not so much that the book is bad, because it's not. But many of the references and expressions made aren't common knowledge like they used to be.
The feeling of reading a lot in a short time rather than over a longer time span is such that, you perceive the way time passes for the story differently. While I was in New York this summer, I read a book, Phantom, that was 900 or so pages. And I read it as unceasingly as I could (Does that make sense?), so I finished it in 2 days.
The first half of the book took place over the course of only a few days. But if I'd read it in bits and pieces, the feelings that I took away from the book would have been different because of it.
I've always found that interesting.
Going back to my original point, there's nothing quite like reading a really good piece of writing. A lot of the things I've read have been by kids around my age too. Maybe it's because I relate to them better, but I don't think so.
The idea that something that comes out of one person's mind can impress another that much is what makes writing so interesting. Mainly, to think that it's possible for one person to write something like that and affect another.
Well anyway, I have no idea where that came from.....
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My thought provoking reads of late have been Jeanette Winterson, Virginia Woolf and Mary Shelley, though we're going back through about 18 months as my reading time has been spent more on magazines of late than literature. I swore I was going to change that in these last few weeks, but life seems to be conspiring against me in that regard!
Virginia Woolf's "The Waves" is written so beautifully I would go back and read passages over again just to admire them, sometimes several times. Jeanette's writing touches things inside me I never knew were there, like suddenly feeling warmth when you didn't know you were cold, but inside, all the way to my soul!
Having never done college prep, I had never read "Frankenstein", so when I did, last year, Mary Shelley blew me away on so many levels; how far ahead of her time she was in her thoughts on social things, etc.. If you've never read it you're in for a treat!
You are wise beyond your years, btw, so "I don't think so" either!
Forgive my prattling on for so long!
No problem.
Frankenstein was pretty good, but I'm not looking forward to reading it again next year for school. I'll have to take a look at those books some time.
I'm now reading "How Green Was My Valley", and at first it was a little slow, but now the way he describes things is so beautiful it can really make a heart beat faster.
For instance, he describes the look in the eyes of two people in love as half the look of a sheep in front of the knife. (I forget the other half)
And in another instance, he describes his awareness of his father's presence, though it is dark an he makes no sound as a "hot stillness that is neither hot nor still"
It's quite an impressive book.
That one doesn't ring a bell except for an old Maureen O'Hara movie by that name (that probably doesn't have a thing to do with the book, but was pretty good).
I always love going to the library because I go in for one or two or three things, and things that are around them on the shelves always find their way home with me.
alan
Actually, I think it was made into a movie. It's the kind of nostalgic book that makes you wish you were alive then and makes you miss those days, even though you weren't there in the first place.
I actually hate the smell of most library books though....
I bought one from Powell's last week that had been on my list for several years. I had read it in "junior high", when I was falling in love with airplanes and aviation. It's a Bantam paperback edition, in very good condition for being as old as it is, but very yellowed and has that "acid paper" smell to it. Not one I'll dare to carry to work to read, I'm afraid!
Of course, if I ever win the Powerball I'll replace it with a hardback, but I don't dream in numbers that high for now!
That smell you speak of has never bothered me, however. I used to think that when I escaped the drudgery of General Motors and "retired" I might try and go back to school and get a degree in Library Sciences. Now I know that probably isn't in the cards, but maybe working in one could be...
:o)
alan
I volunteered in a Library last summer. It was a lot of fun, putting books away, cutting paper for little kids to use for crafts, etc...
I have two days to finish the (second half) 250 or so pages left of the book I'm reading. I spent all of today and yesterday helping my sister clean her room.
I read The Count of Monte Cristo (bridged, of course) in junior high. Recently, I got the unabridged version to read. I haven't had time to read it yet though. My list of books is constantly growing, especially since I read a lot of series books.
When I still worked the assembly line I would read a magazine in the course of an 8 hour shift. I had a subscription to the "New Yorker" and kept a note pad to jot down books that seemed interesting, then I would go to the university library and check some of them out and read them during my breaks and lunch. I found a lot of interesting ones that way!
I was just over 40 when I read "Don Quixote" for the first time; I read a comment somewhere that said that every guy should have to read it 3 times, once in his teens, once at middle age and once "in his dotage". It was an amazing book.
Then there was a "Complete Works of William Shakespeare" I picked up at a Brandeis booksale for $.50. People look at you a bit funny when you carry "the Bard" into an auto plant...
alan