The Devastating Consequences of Literacy

I am a sentimental reader.

Not in the sense that sad stories make me sad, because that's a given for almost anyone that has at least half a heart.

I'm talking more along the lines of being sincerely bummed out as I near the end of a book. Each completed chapter is a sobering reminder that all good literature must come to an end. The stack of pages on the left grow thicker while the stack of pages on the right grow thinner; and for that, I am sorrowful. It's as if I feel guilty for doing exactly what the author intended me to do -- finish reading his work.

Of course, this only applies to good books. If we're talking about Melville's Moby-Dick or Conrad's Lord Jim or Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, then that stuff can't be over soon enough. If it were up to me, that stupid whale would've smashed up Captain Ahab and his crew a good 100 or so pages sooner. There is no remorse when those stories end. Good riddance to overrated, hard-to-sit-through rubbish.

But it's when the book is monumentally enjoyable -- like, for example, Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, or Card's Ender's Game, or Donleavy's The Ginger Man, or, in the specific dilemma that I find myself in right now, Sedaris's When You Are Engulfed in Flames -- that I hesitate to finish it. It feels like such a shame to end something so abruptly. Things are going so well, why stop now? I'm not interested in resolution; I just want to be perpetually entertained. I'll stare at the book, forlorn, regretful that it couldn't have an extra chapter or epilogue -- at my most desperate, I'd even settle for an index. In the same way that you try to prolong a really good first date by suggesting Starbucks after dinner (neither of you actually want coffee, but that's irrelevant; it's their continued company that you're after), I try to do the same with good books.

I'll hem and I'll haw, beat around the bush, do anything possible to fend off the inevitable. I'll slow down my pace to nearly a crawl, almost to the point that I'm reading backwards. I'll sit down to read, cover the span of three and a half pages and say, Okay, I think that's about enough for today. I am a connoisseur; I slowly savor every subordinate clause, every syllable, every punctuation mark, pausing at each individual one to appreciate its existence and, more importantly, the role they play in extending a piece of literature that tiny bit longer. I'll find mundane reasons to interrupt my reading, like getting up to check if I left the stove on or adjusting the temperature on the thermostat or taking out the garbage -- all tasks that I wouldn't have otherwise bothered with if I was at the beginning of the book.

My bookshelf is littered with abandoned novels that have bookmarks jutting straight out of their bindings, all of them conspicuously positioned towards the very last 3/4 of each book. All of them are sitting there, incomplete. I tell myself that though I may not know how these stories end, at least these endings are still available to me if I were ever so inclined. I have all of the finales of these books saved and hoarded, safely tucked away, protected from any would-be readers that may have the nerve to conclude them. Perhaps I think if I save them long enough, somehow they will accrue interest, growing in size the way money in a savings account would. I should consult my bank, ask them if my book pages will multiply exponentially if I lock them away in their vault for X amount of years. If that doesn't work, maybe I can count on Ernest Hemingway coming back from the grave (gunshot wound and all) and tack on a few extra chapters to the end of his novels, maybe take the Old Man out for another fishing trip.

And there's an inherent conflict of interest with this problem. I am a student of English Lit, it's my job to complete novels. If books aren't finished, papers can't be started (then subsequently handed in, graded, critiqued, and so on); that's just how it works. I have no choice but to quickly finish books, one after another, all rapid fire. It's a necessary evil. Considering my field of study, anything less than that kind of steady, assembly-line efficiency is counter-productive to what I'm trying to accomplish. It would be like if Kobiyashi felt a pang of guilt every time he reached the last bite of his hot dog -- it defeats the whole purpose of being a competitive eater. It's an eternal struggle between what the student in me needs to do and what the procrastinator in me wants to do.

I will put on a brave face and begrudgingly finish When You Are Engulfed in Flames now.