27 August 2009

Cursed by The Wheel of Time and ...

Here I am in the city of my childhood, living this beautiful little time wherein I can sleep and eat and play with nieces and go to Friar Tuck down the road, and read, and rediscover my humanity and my writing life and my art making and blah blah blah, and what do I end up reading?

Effing The Wheel of Time, for a third time, and Twilight.

Now, to argue for whatever remaining brainpower and coolness I might have in your mind, I am rereading The Wheel of Time again in preparation of THE LAST BOOK coming out on October 27, while I will be en route with Noah to Seattle. There is an entirely likely possibility that I will read it to him in the car while hopped up on anti-nausea meds. And sadly it is not even the last book--it is part one of three parts which together make up the last book, which is cheating, because the now-dead original author wanted the last book to be one book, even if it was 2000 pages long, which it would be, because the man has introduced at least 200 characters worth following by book 7 of 11 so far. As a former worker in the publishing industry (former, yall!), I can admire the brilliance of publishing three things for a loyal reader to buy instead of one. And I will buy them all and love it.

Twilight ... do I have an excuse? Not really. My brother's wife owns all three, and I saw them on their shelves, and I wanted to read something while he was bleeding my rear brakes in his little alleyway parking space. And then I read 57 pages without stopping. This is why I don't pick up bad novels--I will read them all the way through, I will read every word, and I will do it in like five hours. I read wickedly fast, which is why I love reading The Wheel of Time, because I can read it over a few weeks since each book is 800 pages long. (I know, I know, I'll read Infinite Jest some day.) So now I am reading Twilight, and it is terrible, and I know exactly what will happen, and I don't like any of the characters, and they talk crap about the Pacific Northwest and rain and that hurts my feelings. But I am reading it anyway.

I would ask for reading suggestions, but to be honest, I won't take them. I have two series of novels to work on between apartment hunting and car repair and reading books to my nieces.

4 comments:

illini511 said...

twilight? seriously? i am disappointed....

i read it, though. mostly to see what the hype was all about.

they are entertaining but definitely not worth the mass hysteria that surrounds them

Christine said...

Yeah, I am definitely not liking the book. Sorry to disappoint :(

If I try really hard to imagine myself as a much-younger girl, I think I might be more into it ... but probably not. I read Micheal Crichton in fifth grade because that was interesting and engaging; I don't think Twilight is very engaging at all. Very drama heavy and boring.

And yet I keep reading! I think in another hour of reading, I'll be finished.

illini511 said...

i kept reading mostly because i wanted to see what happened

but, if i were a mother, i don't think i would want my daughter reading those books. i think it sets up a completely unrealistic portrayal of love, blah, blah, blah.

anyways - urbana is lonely without you

broken570 said...

i think michael chrichton, though his books are generally filled with some sex, some violence, and some lofty science, can be considered a children's author. i read jurassic park in fourth grade, and if i were to tote around one of his novels today, i think i'd be a bit embarrassed.

but i do enjoy a lot of his books in an odd sort of way.

how is st. louis? how are you? how is life?