i'm not shy about being bookish. i love to read — i'm never not in the midst of a book — and to have read — i chronicle my yearly book intake and housekeep my goodreads shelves. i procrastinate by browsing online literary lists, putting holds on library books, and even ambling over to bookstores to exist within their annexes. despite all the brainspace i devote to books, i feel frustrated by the snail's pace at which i read them.
this self-assessment is qualitative, anecdotal: i have never attempted to measure my reading pace, but i perceive that the regular readers with whom i am in congress (real and imagined) complete books much faster than i do. one friend starts and finishes our book club picks in one weekend while i plan to read them weeks in advance knowing i'll dawdle on through. twitter people whom i admire read twice as many books as i do per year or at least seem to do so given their prolific, multifarious book-driven blog posts.
reading isn't a competition, of course, but i feel disappointed by my inability to keep up with my protean interests. although i stick with most books til the bitter end, i'm emotionally unfaithful in reading them. piquant phrasings, shower thoughts, and fleeting feelings forever catch my mind, all of which beget new book desires. soon after i start a book, i've mentally moved on from that which drew me to it. observing others who read more than me evinces my potential to zip through books at a pace that would better rival my zooming brain.
wouldn't that be nice? would it?
detonating my frustration on the blank page distances me from it, and, viewed from afar, it morphs into a string of questions. why does my brain whir rather than relax while i read books? might my mismatched brain and book tempos mask a deeper issue like inattention? would short-form content better suit my short-term whims, opening up room for books satisfy, study, or shape my longer-term life zeitgeists? i've mischaracterized my quandary, fixating on speed instead of intent and the immersion it enkindles.
let's do a close reading (hehe) of my fiction reading. i'll skip over nonfiction because it often falls into the intro-as-thesis-chapters-as-examples trap and thus merits no more than an absent-minded skim. fiction demands focus.
in reading novels, i stagnate on individual sentences when i try to visualize them with exactitude or extract their fullest sense on first pass. the arbitrary threshold of linguistic or literary understanding for which i reach leaves (hehe) me tripping over the metaphorical trees (diction, syntax, wordly devices) and failing to see the also-metaphorical forest (themes, plots, characters). my pace only picks up when i surpass syntax and sink into the story. helpful observation! the trouble is, i don't know how to consistently hit the high of sinking in.
maybe myriad distractions mire me? i've learned that focus is something i have to fight for. i stepped out on a recent morning walk choked with what-if-i-miss-something anxiety even though i'd set aside an hour to circumambulate the lake before my google calendar clocked me in. it took me a good 5-10 minutes of movement to dispel this negativity and be fully present in the walk. if reading is anything like walking (or running or writing), sinking in takes time and i'm simply not setting aside enough of it.
the aforementioned book club friend mentioned something similar to me while driving me home last week: she reads book swathes during unstructured time swathes but, when those aren't easy to come by, she wraps up a section or short chapter during an in-between time. i yearn to find that interstitial flow state, but, for now, i'll test out her time chunking strategy.
if you don't self-identify as a slothlike bibliophile, tell me about how/when/where you like to read! i'm sure i have more to learn. :)
and, to close things out, a colophon for the curious: my punny title was not directly inspired by the foghat song, but rather by a station wagon hand-painted with its most quotable lyrics that i often see parked around my neighborhood. thanks, stranger!
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