A lazy Saturday afternoon…

I have felt a tug or two but never a compulsion to read The Lovely Bones, Revolutionary Road, Twilight, or any other book before the movie version premiered. Still, I’m extremely annoyed with myself for not being able to pop in the 1995 Ang Lee directed “Sense and Sensibility” into the DVD player because it’s taking me a ridiculously long time to finish the book. I bought the movie at a great bargain weeks ago thinking that I’ll see the movie very soon when I finish reading the book. The DVD has been starring at me in its pristine, transparent wrapping, kind of judgmentally and impatiently.

Oh but it has become an event to read Jane Austen for me ever since I bought  the novels that came all bound together in a very pretty but unwieldy tome. Yes, it was one of those “complete works” door stopper. I love the ornate book, and I thought it a great idea at the time to get the enormous book since I had a great desire to consume all Jane Austen books and I can accomplish that task from one book. But since the book is heavy and entirely not portable, I don’t open the book in proportion to how much I love to read Jane Austen.  But today, I let tea in Alice’s lovely New Orleans teacup settle me into Sense and Sensibility, concerning myself with the frustrations of Elinor’s life. The hot weather outside also deterred me from reading some tiny book outside. I’d rather escape to Jane Austen world and deal with the living things in its many gardens than contend with the sweltering summer heat outside. What a blessing it is to be able to sit around on a Saturday afternoon sipping tea and sliding into Sense and Sensibility!

Dickinson is for the spring.

I started reading Emily Dickinson in April, when spring was the only fathomable season, to celebrate the poetry month. Today, a weekend away from the official beginning of the summer, I have finished my book of Emily Dickinson, all 1775 poems. Summer is my least favorite time of the year when the humidity outside matches the one in my mind, intensifying the stickiness I actually feel. There are people and other living things to contend with everywhere. So although I am kind of impressed with myself for having read all of Dickinson poems, coming to the end of that gray tome is quite sad.

The poems were so effective that just reading them would make me sneeze. But my sinus is slowly chilling out, and I am shedding my knitted hand warmers. I guess it’s time to stop reading about the raiment of nature and taunting eternity and get into my sluggish summer reading. 

Defying expectations

When you discover a surprising aspect to a person you thought you had all figured out, it can be pleasant or disturbing. Same goes for books. Books often take us on unexpected journeys, the kinds you couldn’t have envisioned just by looking at the cover or reading the author’s previous works. Readers love the thrill of finding worlds they know were previously unfathomable before and often find themselves in intriguing and fantastic realms.

Then there are books that take you on journeys you wish you had opted out of. I distinctly remember the disappointment and confusing I had endured in the seventh grade when I thought I had found a book in the vein of the beloved Charlotte’s Web. The cover had pictures of farm animals and the petite volume looked so approachable even shelved in the classics sections. Of course the book was Animal Farm and my middle school self kept wondering why the animals are sort of twisted and mean.

I had miscalculated again just last week. Remembering I had liked reading “No Exit” by Sartre in college, and noticing that the volume had three other plays in it, I grabbed the book for an interesting Saturday afternoon reading. I thought I would read three other plays about people sitting around in an ornate living room for all of eternity attaching words to their woes. All three plays were nothing like that.

The prose of those three plays came sharp and disturbing. I even had a nightmare about one of the plays. And I can’t decide if reading is wonderful or terrifying. What a risk we take when we follow the words on a page!