Thursday, June 04, 2009

Reading Again

I am reading Robert Penn Warner's All the King's Men, and I am humbled by the fact that I am reading again.

For about 10 months now, I have been on the longest reading drought of my life.

I have sampled & not finished

* Upton Sinclair's The Jungle
* A.J.Jacob's very amusing journal The Year of Living Biblically: One man's humble quest to follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
* Gregory David Roberts' ever popular & in every friend's reading list Shantaram
* re-reading Les Miserables
* Julia Child's posthumous My Life in France
* the last chapter of Narayan's The Guide
* Coelho's The Valkyries
* Vikram Seth's Two lives* Arthur Clarke's Childhood's End
& most distressing of all been unable to finish Douglas Coupeland's JpOD, for he is the person over whose shoulder I'd most want to peep over, for I can't imagine how he touches my soul like he does.

In the past ten months, all my mind has been able to hold on to has been copious amounts of Asimov & Christie.
And I have been very sad. Because much as I love Asimov & Christie, I feel like I am cheating when I read them. Because I know them so well, and can almost predict what they will do next.

I, am discovering nothing new from them,

& have been thinking that perhaps I've finally lost that love for reading that made me sit up eons & eons ago, in the middle of the night, long after my parents had switched off the lights, to finish Pride & Prejudice or which made JS & I spend our summer sleep overs competing to finish Hardy's Tess,

& am doomed to wonder around with a mind that will not fasten itself to anything but entertainingly asinine reality shows.

And then, suddenly, out the blue, I pick up Warren, who I had dismissed earlier because after all, he was just an American Author & a Southern One at that.
And I am lost in his words. And I can cry for joy. For I found my love again.
And I am so grateful to this book for helping me find it again.

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