Reading Habit
The Secret is Out
I never finish books.
If I’ve talked to you about a book I’ve “read” in about the last 10 years then it’s something of a fib.
I can’t finish a book. Sure, there are a few that I make it through 100%: Infinite Jest (perhaps somewhat ironically); A few mystery novels. Most books are read through very close to the end - a chapter out, 20-30 pages, give or take.
There certainly exists some psychological reason or an apt symbolism for the failure to reach the back cover. But I can’t figure out why I keep doing it. I never plan it. I just never finish a book no matter how much I enjoy the writing or story.
This is true of hundreds of books.
The blame I think belongs to The Corrections. I loved reading the first ⅔ of the novel. As the ending drew closer I felt the author losing it and going easy. I feared the disappointment to come and never let it reach me.
And I’ve never recovered. It’s a terrible habit – like smoking, or commenting on blogs.
I think the blame belongs to a very nice woman I met years ago. A friend of a friend of my sister. I was a teenager and impressionable. I had shown her a great piece of scorched metal that I intended to use in a piece of artwork. It had a curl that folded along a charred edge almost like a great tin page. The intention was to straighten the sheet and use the metal as a background or surface.
She saw me fiddling with that fold to straighten it and told me to leave it curled.
“That way you’ll always want to know what’s behind there. It will keep it’s mysteries.”
This habit keeps me from writing and talking about books with the energy and force that I once used. It’s not fair being this passive aggressive and dumping/praising an author whose work you’ve not finished to the last page. Instead I feel OK about discussing the writing of a novel but not the book in its entirety.
There’s a difference, right?
I can only blame myself. I’ll keep those phantom endings at bay and give the author the benefit of the doubt. I find the endings to novels (from what I remember) always unbearably overloaded with expectation and projected hopes. Better to leave them somewhere, in the country, where they can run.
I also never finish audio books.
