Lost in a Good Book
I have to confess, I’d rather be reading right now. I’m in the middle of a total beach read, a fun little book by Sophie Kinsella, and I feel like I’m back at my first job right now, because all I want to do is get to my lunchtime so I can read for a half hour. There’s this great old song by Ben Folds where he’s singing about how he has to finish one more song for his album and usually he tries for excellence, but he’s newly in love and just wants to get it done so that he can get back to his new girl.
This is like this, except not love, just a book that’s a little bit too addictive. It’s a hard thing, making a book hard to put down. A lot goes into it – pacing, chapter breaks, plot twists – and as a reader, we usually don’t notice unless it’s done badly. Then, it feels like every time we approach the end of a chapter, someone is professing love or falling off a cliff or being revealed as a secret spy. After a while, it gets a little tedious and more than a little unbelievable.
Done well, however, and I find myself awake at one a.m., ignoring my sensible self, saying “Just one more chapter,” over and over. Prose is usually pretty accessible to me. I notice characterization and foreshadowing and themes and all that, and I can tell when it’s being done well or badly. Except when a book hits that addictive spot. Then it’s like I’m bewitched. I don’t even know it’s happening until I my stomach rumbles because it’s been 7 hours since dinner and I realize I really do need to get to sleep.
On the other hand, poetry always feels like magic to me. I’m not a poet so the idea that you can convey meaning not only with the words but the rhythm, the sound, the feel of the words – it’s as close to enchantment as I think I can get. Not every poet hits me the same way. Shakespeare is a slog and I find T.S.Eliot frankly confusing. But Emily Bronte haunts me and I find myself tapping along to Longfellow’s meter. I think that’s one of the beautiful parts of poetry: it hits each of us differently, resonating with our uniqueness.
And for some people, poetry doesn’t do anything at all. It might make rational sense, but that magic isn’t there. I feel that way with visual art. It doesn’t hit me. I’ve tried. I’ve researched and learned and I can explain the difference between impressionism and post-impressionism art, but my taste boils down to, “Do I like the colors?” Which some art scholar could tell me the meaning of, I’m sure, but in reality means that it doesn’t draw me in.
To each our own, I guess. I’m glad that the magic works differently for different people. And I’m really, really glad that I don’t know why it works on me. There’s something missing when you learn too much, when you step too far back from the story and turn it into a work to be critiqued. I’m still glad I know how to get lost in a good book.
