Reading Is Fundamental (RIF)

I've spent most of the day today reading Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go. It's fantastic- a sentimental remembrance of figuring out the rules of society and one's place in it, set in a reality where children are being raised for organ harvesting- and I'll likely keep reading it to the end.

This is a bad way to read books. Like with movies, you can spend hours living in the fantasy world that's been created for you and sharing in the thought processes and emotions of the central characters, but then the movie is over or you finish the book and you can't remember a damn thing about what just happened. I'm reading this one for my book club and by the time I get to our discussion in two weeks, I won't even remember the names of the main characters.

In a way giant thick books are better for me to read because I can't do it in one sitting and more of the details stick in my head because there was more reality in between the fantasy.

So anyway, I frequently make myself take breaks to process the information in the book instead of chugging through it to the end. I'll get a glass of water or write a blog entry or just sit for a minute with the book closed and think about it.

This is always when a bit of reality that I dislike reveals itself to me. I truly, terribly, absolutely hate it that the person who designs the book cover get their name printed on the cover of the book. Sure, acknowledge the person if you must on an inside page, but the average book cover is something that takes a couple of hours to throw together whereas a book can and often does take multiple years to complete. To me that's like putting the name of the set caterer below that of the director on a DVD jacket.

So instead of actually reflecting on what's in the book, I get steamed up about what's the outside of it. Then when I get sick of getting mad at something in the real world I have no power to change, I retreat back into the safe fantasy world of the text.