Reading

I have recently started reading in a new way. In the past, I would drive through a book from beginning to end, navigating carefully between the commas, exclamations and paragraphs to move in geographical sense from the title to the very last word. Now, after having come across some books which i had forced myself to finish in order to find meaning, not wanting to have robbed myself of discovering something new or having wasted my time, i would plug through much like someone at the slot machine who refuses to leave because of all the quarters, times, and prayers, they had put into their endeavor. I have since realized that this method brings me no comfort, and so i have since veered into just putting the book away and leaving it alone, refusing to skip or skim pages to discover the end, fearful that this might become an addicting forming habit in which all my readings could suffer this race car driver fate, robbing me of great novels.

However I soon noticed that sometimes this too was not ideal as my mind would drift upon the fate of those characters, and wonder what happened, where could that story have been going? Which has brought me to another phase, the phase, i was initially avoiding, the race car method, which consists of shortcuts much driving violations, and yes, the danger of becoming addicted to a quick ending in detriment of an enjoyable reading. A method that I fear, are remote controls, and high speed online surfing has infected us with.

I became aware of this when I had started reading revolutionary road by Richard Yates, which is about the confinements of suburbia, which seem to linger too much at one point, and although a fine novel, I had become tired of hearing the characters whine and I raced toward the end. I just had a difficult time feeling anything for the characters and although their issues seemed justifiable and even relevant to today, and to the world in which I live, I just failed to become embroiled in the narrative, but felt as if i were drifting slightly while watching a bickering couple.