The Neverending Story

Every now and then I get myself into a jam.  This is one of those times.  As of right now, I have 6 books in various stages of incompleteness.    

Jonathan Strange, by Susanna Clarke
The Forsyte Saga, by John Galsworthy
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens
Middlemarch, by George Eliot
Stoner, by John Williams
Demimonde: Winter, by Rod Rees

And now I am about to start reading three more.

Swan Song, by Robert R. McCammon
Keeping Watch: A History of American Time, by Mike O’Malley
A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

I think this is a personality flaw and possibly an addiction.  My strengths have never included cold mental discipline; my frontal lobe has never mastered an impetuousness born out of my child-like desire for immediate gratification.  This flaw is all the greater because I can’t parallel process well.  I’m one of those people who can summon his intellect to focus on one task at a time: bear down on it, learn it, master it, then dispense with it.  At this I am very good, but as soon as I split my attention across more than one task, even just two, all suffer.  I am not someone who can talk on his blue-tooth enabled cell phone and drive at the same time.  I don’t even listen to passengers well.  If there are times when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, there are other times when the whole is less than the sum of its parts.  I may know my limitations, but impulsiveness rules my untrained mind.

All of these books are good in their own right, and there are many more on my To-Read list that are probably as good or better. Thus I am fidgeting to start reading them too, and I fear this lack of control could lead to bibliophile disaster.  Like those graphs of logarithmic functions approaching the x- or y-axis, but never quite reaching it, my reading keeps getting closer and closer to the end without ever quite getting there. 

Part of my problem is I love reading 19th century English tomes, which go on and on and on without end.  But that’s only part of the problem.  Another problem, a bigger one, maybe the biggest, is I am a slow reader.  I had improved my reading speed and comprehension through reading exercises, but then I stopped.  I need to get back to them; after all, the more I improve my reading speed, the more books I can read at the same time.  Perfect. 

What I really need to do is prioritize my treasures and read one at a time.  Of course, that won’t work if my priorities keep shifting, which brings me full circle to my impulsive nature.  What to do?  They are all so interesting that I don’t want to shelve any, not even temporarily. 

How about you?  Do any of you suffer from the same “disease”?  If so, give us your thoughts and insights.  And most of all, tell us what you have done to temper the urge.  Are you one of those people who claim to read 2 or 3 books a week?  If so, prey tell, how?

-- Next Lawrence Welk.  I promise.  Unless, of course, I’m seized by another bout of impulsiveness, in which case, no promises will be kept. 

It’s a disease, I tell you!  A disease!!!

 If you are interested in improving your reading skills, just Google “Reading Faster” or “Reading skills” or some such combination of words, and you will find a host of sites with excellent suggestions.

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