As predicted I have been totally absorbed by The Time Traveler's Wife. It is inexplicable. There have only been a few books in my life that have this effect on me, the one where if I am near the book and I am in the mood to read it, I have absolutely no self-control but must fling myself on it and have my way with it immediately. No matter how much I try to make it last by reading slowly on purpose and finding stopping points and deciding to stop right there and pick it up again later, the book sucks me in and refuses to release me and I am totally in its thrall until I finish reading it, at which point I become despondent because it is over and there is nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon, and there are so few books that are like this and I have just finished one of them.
It's mysterious. They aren't the best books of my acquaintance - I didn't even own The Time-Traveler's Wife until yesterday, and I am all about owning copies of my favorite books. In real life I think that, for instance, Lolita is a better book, but Lolita does not do this to me. The other book that comes to mind in this regard is The Scarlet Pimpernel. Today I would give anything - I mean anything, I would give my laptop and my entire DVD collection and every book I own - if it meant that I could be reading The Scarlet Pimpernel for the first time.
The first time I ever read it, I was about eight or nine, and I remember that when I was at the really exciting bit (with the pepper and the good solid British "Damn!" and all that), I was riding the bus home from school. I completely lost track of where I was and what was going on, and when Anna alerted me to the fact that the bus was stopped in front of our house, it was exactly like being woken up from a really good dream, except that when I got off the bus and went inside, I immediately got to return to it and have it be perfectly resolved.
The point is, when I finish The Time-Traveler's Wife and The Scarlet Pimpernel, that will be It for this kind of book, the consuming my soul kind. It's sad because these are the books that remind me of my great and enduring and passionate love affair with books (I love them even more than water), and after I read them, there are no more like them. Today I went to the library and pulled out every book I could find that I had ever heard was a wonderful book, and I read the beginnings and bits of the middle of them hopefully, in a frantic attempt to find another book like I wanted, but it was a failure.
It just seems so stupid that I should be stuck for books. I'm a writing girl. Writing is my thing. It's like if a carpenter came to me and told me desperately that he really, really, really, really needed a table and he just didn't know what to do. Damn it, if I want a book, why don't I just write one? Sheesh. I am thoroughly frustrated with myself, and also with the world of letters.
Oh, Jane Eyre. That was another one. So there's three. It's the books of which I have distinct and specific memories of reading them for the first time (in the case of The Time-Traveler's Wife it was the second time; I have no idea what bizarre failure of my mind was happening when I read it the first time, but I suppose I must have been expecting something completely else and felt disappointed) and being unable to put them down.
Anyway if you know of any books that have this effect on you, please tell me. I am going to read Jane Eyre and The Scarlet Pimpernel (which, damn it, the library doesn't have and the bookshop doesn't have and I'm going to have to read it on my computer which is a lot less satisfying), but that won't take me very long and then I will be a pathetic lost soul and I will wander aimlessly around the library and the bookshop feeling very water-water-everywhere and feeling like I am Rose and Cassandra making longing cat noises in I Capture the Castle.
(I Capture the Castle has a similar sort of allure, though not as strong. It is one of my favorite books for this reason - I always find it hard to read just a little bit of it, but it does not fill me with misery to finish it. Except that I wish Cassandra had bestowed her heart on someone I liked more.)
OH MY GOD it is like a drug. I need my fix of soul-consuming books because otherwise life is totally unbearable. Tell me another book like this that I can read! Someone! Please!
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3 comments:
Oh, and, "Tamsin." Completely soul-sucking.
Both The Scarlet Pimpernel and Lolita had that effect on me (albeit ten years apart).
Gormenghast! Have you read Gormenghast yet? It is the absolutely best book in the whole world and the author, Mervyn Peake, was driven mad by writing it and it is LONG and it is GOOD and the writing is like poetry that goes on and on and describes things and does dialogue and stuff and it is possibly even better than the Sandman. And you should read it.
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