I've always been an avid reader. I'd rip through books at lightening speed, devouring any I got my hands on. Each Saturday I'd get a stack out from the library, and most of the would be finished by dinner. A Baby-Sitters Club or Sweet Valley book would take me 25 minutes to read. Longer chapter books might take an hour. When Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out in 2003 (aka seventh form), weighing in at a whopping 766 pages, I got my hands on it as soon as possible then lay on my bed reading for eight and a half hours. I didn't get up until I finished it. Whatever I was reading, it was easy to slip away into a fictional world and forget about mundane realities. Characters became best friends, and their world became my world. Oh, how I wished I could be the tenth member of the BSC!
I'm a horrible skim reader, though. Or at least I was then. I like to think I'm a bit better now. But back in the day I'd skip over most descriptive passages (especially if they were long!) - I just wanted the action and the dialogue. And I wanted to get to the end of the book as soon as possible, in one sitting, so that I always had a complete picture of a book in my head.
It came as no surprise to anybody when I began studying English Literature at university. It was a natural fit. However, it did mean I had to change the way I read. No more skipping the (sometimes) vital descriptions! Stopping at the end of chapters to analyse things! (Stopping at the end of chapters to go to class ... ) Thinking critically about themes, character, and vocabulary! Constantly looking out for quotes that were going to come in handy in the inevitable essay or exam!
I spent seven years at uni. Three years for my degree, another year for honours, a year writing a proposal for my MA, then two years writing, submitting, and finalising my MA. After studying for so long I found that I was picking up on authors' tricks and clues, even when they were the types that are supposed to remain hidden in the background out of the reader's way. The types of things that - if you know them - can spoil a surprise ending for you, or reveal a plot point before it's supposed to be revealed.
Case in point: Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks are my favourite characters in Harry Potter. They were the ones I was most concerned about staying alive as I anticipated and then began to read Deathly Hallows. Things were looking good for the first chapter or so. He's a fierce and intelligent werewolf, right, and she was trained as an auror by Mad-Eye Moody so she knew her stuff. They should have been fine. Then, however, Remus turns up at Grimauld Place all angsty and annoying and announces that Tonks is pregnant. 'Huh?' was my first thought. It quickly turned into 'oh, COME ON JKR, really? I know where this is going ... you're going to kill them off so you can draw some nice, tidy literary parallels between little orphan Harry and another little orphan. Couldn't you have done it with Bill and Fleur instead? I don't care for them. Dammit!' When the end of the book came round I was both smug and sad to see that I was right.
These sort of 'rules' or tropes that exist aren't bad things. You need a certain amount of them for a story to work, but knowing them does take away from the reading experience.
I didn't read much of anything once I'd finished my MA. I'm not entirely sure why, maybe it felt too much like work. Apparently it's not an uncommon experience though! It was about six months until I read a book, and a year until I read fiction again. I finished my MA in September 2010, and it wasn't until this month that I had a reading experience like I used to have before my study. The kind where I'm completely lost in the fictional world, where putting the book down ispainful, and when I'm be reading while walking to the bus stop. There is one slight difference, and that's that I haven't sat down to read it all in one go. I'm taking my time with it - perhaps I'm combining my 'professional' and 'leisurely' methods of reading, perhaps I just have less time to read.
The book is Nevada by Josh Porter. Josh plays in the band Showbread, so he's not primarily a writer or concerned with following writerly rules. I'm reading this book, and I have no clue what's about to happen next. I'm not catching things when they happen, but when they're revealed. Something will happen, and I'll suddenly understand the meaning of something that happened 50 pages earlier.
I'm really enjoying engaging with a book in this way again! I think this is the way writers intend readers to read. I find myself having to think about plot points, becoming confused, and having multiple theories about what's going to happen next. I'm about 20 pages away from the end of the book, and I'm still completely unsure about how it will end. Reading like this is so enjoyable that I'm putting off reading the last few pages - I want to have more to look forward to! (Lucky for me, there's a sequel.)
The downside to engaging so completely with a book is getting attached to the characters. Actually, let me amend that. The downside to engaging so completely with a book like this one, a weird and wonderful mix of horror, sci-fi, theology, and what almost seems like apocalyptic literature, is getting attached to characters. Because so many of them are killed off. I'm really attached to this one character, Paul, whose story is told through journal entries. He's described as showing 'mild retardation' and has an IQ of 68. He carries Oscar the ferret (his best friend of six years) everywhere with him, and is very trusting and sweet. He has moved me close to tears many times, and I did cave in a recent chapter when things began looking awful for the poor man:
they say they going to draw and corner me and I dont no what that meens but i think it meens kill me so im reel scard and maybe this my last time to rite in my jurnul ... if you read this last jurnul then i hope peepel will try to love other peepel instead of hurt them and that peepel will try to do what other peepel want first and treet them better than themself. i think that is the best way to be. love, Paul.
Joshua S. Porter (2009). Nevada. p. 293-294.
(An aside - I am so wrapped up in the story of this book that I've only now realised that Paul is a biblical name, and this is a theological novel. The mind boggles even more ... whatever will happen next? He sure doesn't seem like biblical Paul.)
I need to find more books like these. In addition to the sequel Josh has another stand alone book, but they won't sustain me for long. Any recommendations?
SWF, 25, seeks engaging and surprising literature that doesn't follow the rules. Can anyone set me up? Leave a comment below or email belwrites@gmail.com.
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