Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
I have a confession to make. Actually, that sounds too dramatic. This is more of a clarification. But, I have an odd feeling of guilt attached to it. So, maybe it is a confession.
Ahh, get on with it, fer fuck’s sake.
Those books that I list off to the right here? I add each to the list when I start reading it. Maybe not the day that I start, but the next time I log on to Blugger I add whatever title I’ve picked up since the previous post.
But, I don’t always finish the books, and I never take off titles I haven’t finished. Still, it seems a little intellectually dishonest to post a reading list because the implicit assumption is that I am listing books I have actually read.
Now, it isn’t like I’m artificially inflating my reading profile by massive amounts here. In fact, there is currently only one book on then list I haven’t finished. What has prompted me to confess is, in fact, this one book. Because I am making a conscious choice not to finish it.
It isn’t the first book on my reading list that I haven’t finished and it won’t be the last, but usually some outside force makes some of the decision for me, most often that the book is due at the library and on hold for someone, so it can’t be renewed. This time, however, it is only choice.
That’s really where the guilt is coming from for me. Not the idea that I may have led people to believe that I complete 10% more books than I actually do (estimating that one in ten is unfinished), but the fact that I am giving up on a story.
I realize there are people in the world that will find the guilt strange, wonder why I would make any kind of big deal about not finishing a book. Well, I think you people are strange, ok? I had a roommate my junior year of college that could get up and go to bed twenty minutes before the end of a TV movie we’ve both been watching, and it boggled me every time. How could he not have to see how it ends? Who are you people that aren’t compelled to stay up well past reason to see the end of a movie? Who never sit in their driveway listening to the end of a radio program? Who feel no guilt over dropping a novel mid-stream, refusing to consider that they should, yes SHOULD damnit, wrestle with it to the very bitter end?
I’m abandoning Captain Bluebear, and it is kind of tearing me up a little inside.
There isn’t anything to hate in this book, and I’ve been delighted at moments. It is the utterly absurd tale of a blue bear, found by Minipirates floating in a walnut shell being sucked into a whirlpool, and of the 13 1/2 lives of the blue bear that follow. Well-written, brilliant concept.
But, it just isn’t moving me. I feel like I am just going through the motions, trying to get to the end only out if a sense of responsibility and no real joy. And, maybe that is why the guilt. If I hated the book, if it had somehow betrayed me (which, without question, books can do), I could drop it in better conscience. But, no, no, this is a good book. I just don’t want to read it any more. I don’t care how it turns out. There are other books I want to go read.
It’s not you, it’s me, Captain Bluebear.
I feel like a cad.
Ahh, get on with it, fer fuck’s sake.
Those books that I list off to the right here? I add each to the list when I start reading it. Maybe not the day that I start, but the next time I log on to Blugger I add whatever title I’ve picked up since the previous post.
But, I don’t always finish the books, and I never take off titles I haven’t finished. Still, it seems a little intellectually dishonest to post a reading list because the implicit assumption is that I am listing books I have actually read.
Now, it isn’t like I’m artificially inflating my reading profile by massive amounts here. In fact, there is currently only one book on then list I haven’t finished. What has prompted me to confess is, in fact, this one book. Because I am making a conscious choice not to finish it.
It isn’t the first book on my reading list that I haven’t finished and it won’t be the last, but usually some outside force makes some of the decision for me, most often that the book is due at the library and on hold for someone, so it can’t be renewed. This time, however, it is only choice.
That’s really where the guilt is coming from for me. Not the idea that I may have led people to believe that I complete 10% more books than I actually do (estimating that one in ten is unfinished), but the fact that I am giving up on a story.
I realize there are people in the world that will find the guilt strange, wonder why I would make any kind of big deal about not finishing a book. Well, I think you people are strange, ok? I had a roommate my junior year of college that could get up and go to bed twenty minutes before the end of a TV movie we’ve both been watching, and it boggled me every time. How could he not have to see how it ends? Who are you people that aren’t compelled to stay up well past reason to see the end of a movie? Who never sit in their driveway listening to the end of a radio program? Who feel no guilt over dropping a novel mid-stream, refusing to consider that they should, yes SHOULD damnit, wrestle with it to the very bitter end?
I’m abandoning Captain Bluebear, and it is kind of tearing me up a little inside.
There isn’t anything to hate in this book, and I’ve been delighted at moments. It is the utterly absurd tale of a blue bear, found by Minipirates floating in a walnut shell being sucked into a whirlpool, and of the 13 1/2 lives of the blue bear that follow. Well-written, brilliant concept.
But, it just isn’t moving me. I feel like I am just going through the motions, trying to get to the end only out if a sense of responsibility and no real joy. And, maybe that is why the guilt. If I hated the book, if it had somehow betrayed me (which, without question, books can do), I could drop it in better conscience. But, no, no, this is a good book. I just don’t want to read it any more. I don’t care how it turns out. There are other books I want to go read.
It’s not you, it’s me, Captain Bluebear.
I feel like a cad.
posted by JJisafool at 11:38 AM
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