There was a short fiction book I started reading last year and after a day of pain-staking—that is, with much, much pain—comprehending, I decided to put it down. It has been more than a year since and I have yet to feel the need to pick it up again, wherever it is now. I had all my stuff rearranged too many times in this short period and that book is one that I had no intention of remembering.
Not even after coming across a lovely article that praises its literary beauty. My past self had once looked forward to reading the book because of such essays, but now…
Perhaps it is not yet time.
I once told a friend, after said friend told me I recommend a bit too many books at a time, that the best way to go through a lot of reading is to never feel compelled to finish a book one’s heart is not in. If your soul writhes with every page, not in a healthy philosophical, life-giving-through-death way, then put it down. There are too many books in this world to suffer with one meaninglessly.
And yet I find myself now in this ironic dilemma: a completely different book that I cannot tell my feelings toward. Do I hate it? With a seething passion? Am I bored? Annoyed? Frustrated? Amused?
It is not meaningless, so far, that is one. But I keep finding myself turning elsewhere when I should be reading it. Or maybe it is the other way around: that I keep finding myself wanting to read it when there are many other things to do at the moment.
…
How odd it feels to find comfort in endings…
