Sunday 22 April 2012

The absent minded reader

I have been reading a novel (never mind which one) and I am about to finish the last few pages. And I discovered something today: I lost half the plot between the beginning, which I was following eagerly, and the now soon to be end. The characters mix in my head, I remember a few memorable scenes, a few nice descriptions, but the rest... The core of the novel, I forgot it. It is crime fiction, I think it is even good crime fiction, yet it is one of those books that went way over my head.

I am ashamed to say it. I made my life studying literature, it is maybe the thing I do best. And yet, since I started studying it at university, I took this very, very bad habit of, well, reading words, getting through the book, and not being able to stick it in my mind. This time, maybe it is caused by the fact that I have two or three books I am reading at once. Maybe it is because I am already looking at the next book I am going to read. But I wish I was never an absent minded reader.

3 comments:

PJ said...

Ça m'arrive de lire sans porter attention. Dans ce temps-là, quand je m'en rends compte, j'arrête et je me repose. Sinon c'est comme si tu l'avais pas lu.

Ah oui, faut que tu lises ton livre dédicacé par mon ancienne voisine, la suite est sortie depuis genre 6 semaines.

Cynthia said...

Ca m'arrive souvent c'est pour ça que j'ai toujours eu des notes désastreuses aux contrôles de lecture!

The Gill-Man said...

This used to happen to me a lot...usually when I was reading more than one book at once. Now, I just stick to one at a time! Hels reduce confusion!