have been trying to read this one Margaret Atwood book for years. it’s called ‘Cat’s Eye’ and it’s been on my shelf for, like i said, years. I always pick it up and never manage to get past the first 10 pages. last night i took it off from the shelf in my current desperation for some fresh reading material, thinking that perhaps i have changed, am mature enough for this text now. while reading it seemed i wanted to do everything but that; in fact that very distractedness led to me sitting here to write. about the fact that i cannot seem to read this book.
all of this has me wondering about how intellectual i can and can’t pass off as. this mostly has to do with people who enter my life whom i then seek to impress or match as far as literary and artistic interests go. with a bookshelf that hasn’t been updated since i stopped buying books and only now borrow them from the library out of a fear of committing, my taste in literature is difficult to discern from one glance. there’s a whole bunch of Agatha Christies, some of my favourite mid-teen laugh out loud non-serious-literature type books, some of my mom’s books that i took upon myself to read eventually but haven’t lived up to the promise, some Pakistani writers, some African. i wonder if the problem is my attention span, my absolutely outdated and am-sick-of-looking-at bookshelf, or just that maybe i don’t enjoy reading as much as i would like to tell myself & others.
but i also know of my ability to be absolutely immersed in a book that i picked up on a whim. a lot of these have been library books, actually. and i forget about them because they’re not sitting there in front of my eyes. all that is there to see are my failed attempts.
and then there’s the poetry dilemma. i have so many poetry books at home, these thanks to my dad, and yet i rarely stop for a skim. i think that maybe i’m scared of poetry. i don’t want to read a verse and then feel stupid for not having registered what the poet meant. i don’t know how to read poetry, if there is such a thing, which there must be, for why else would there be courses in literature?
and then there’s my desire to write. and paint for that matter, too. do i have a right to write if i don’t always have the inclination to read? this itself was difficult to admit. am i then admitting to having narrow intellectual interests and limited things to talk about with new people who do like to read? or is that just me being hard on myself again? hm.
i enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love last year, and there’s another thing i judge myself for saying aloud. i also devoured at least three mystery novels. i didn’t read a single classic, or any work by authors i could throw into a conversation and expect to be admired for. there was a bit of Murakami in the start of the year, and it mostly made me feel sad.
i do love stories. i like to enter worlds and then have to recalibrate myself to life when the book comes to a close. i also like to feel seen in the characters that i read. there is a resonance i’m seeking, and if i don’t find it in the world’s profoundest most fantastic writers then…well.. either i’ll get there, or i just need to be looking elsewhere.
zoomkawali 