Patience

I want to feel again the satisfaction of having read a good novel. Except that, the part about reading it is troublesome. Gone were the days of spending an entire week at home with nose in book.

I can’t seem to remember how I managed to go through a few hundred pages of other people’s lives, completely engrossed to the point of feeling a tinge of disappointment when I reach the end of the book. Now I feel like I’m counting down to the end of the chapter. And so, I turn to short stories – still hard.

It’s such a shame that I no longer have the patience for all that. I’ve always believed that books and music should be long, there should be enough time for every plot idea and every emotion to develop fully. That’s why I enjoyed reading every detail in books hundreds of pages long and feeling every note in songs 20 minutes long. But now, I just hope they will all “get straight to the point”.

No time? More of an excuse actually. It’s too easy to get distracted these days. A humorous programme on TV, internet chat, stupid articles online and a friend’s call anytime to the mobile easily takes the mind off finishing a book. Besides, who has the time to read fiction when there’s so much happening around us? How about true stories and autobiographies? I’ve enough to worry about in my life to read someone elses’ rants.

I really have to get back to all the half read books, and mark the day I manage to finish a novel. Oh, the last one was The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly – a true story, really short one.