And the bookseller wore a sad face.
June 14th, 2010
Few things have felt more satisfying this year than reaching the end of a book. I knocked off three of them just like that a few weeks ago, and now I’m back to that one that just won’t end.
In 2001, I bought The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, and since that time, I’ve managed to complete about 1/3 of it. It’s a brilliantly-written novel: it’s funny, smart, and I care about the characters, but man does it drag on, kind of like an Apatow film (sidenote: we saw Get Him to the Greek last weekend, and it was decent. Judd Apatow only produced it, and I think its brevity made it a stronger movie).
Anyway, these World War II-era novels just don’t cut it for me. I had a conversation with an old friend one time who said that he would stop reading a book if it wasn’t holding his interest. Somehow, that idea seemed completely bewildering to me.
“Life’s too short for shitty books,” he said.
I’ve learned something about myself in the past few months. If I purchase something, I feel an obligation to get value out of my purchase. If I get something for free, I can walk away from it easily.
That said, I’m too far into Catch-22 to give up on it (I’ve only got 30% of the book left, and even though I’m having a hard time finishing it, I don’t consider it a shitty book), but for the next few months, my library card will start to see some action.