Books and Reading
I mentioned about a month ago that I had started seriously reading again for the first time in about ... oh, eight or nine years. A combination of losing two hours of public transit a day, adding in an hour or two of gym time every day,and a poor psychological decision combined to take my beloved books away from me. Forever, I thought.
Oh, the poor decision? Well, I thought since I was writing more, I should read less. You know, to avoid picking up on other peoples' styles.
Look, I claim to be awesome, not necessarily bright.
At any rate, after listening to too many writing podcasts natter at me about the importance of reading, and after a conscious decision to spend less time starting at little glowing screens or little brown bottles, I've been reading.
And I've been reading like a writer, and that fact just hit me last week.
The book in question is Iain M Banks' Player of Games, which just felt torturously, terribly slow to me for the first thirty pages or so. Which is to say, this is when I picked up on what he was doing.
Gurgeh is bored with his everyday utopian* existence. He's bored with utopia itself. Nothing means anything to him, and as a result, not much seems to mean anything to the reader.
I know I'm too old to be geeking out over this, but like I say, I've been away a long time, and even when I *did* read I was very much of the mindset that analyzing things was a dull waste of time when there was surface fun to be had just in the reading of a book.
The book *does* pick up, of course; and I was awake until 1 AM on Tuesday polishing off the last 150 pages. I highly recommend it, and am picking up the first Culture novel via Amazon this weekend.
* -- Looks like Utopia to me, anyway. No money, no laws, no hunger, no sickness, no death, no pressures**. Based on this book I'd pledge allegiance to The Culture in a heartbeat.
** --
doogs19 and I are signed up to play Luke and Jared's new game, Freemarket, at GenCon. It looks to me very very very much like it might have been inspired by the Culture.
Oh, the poor decision? Well, I thought since I was writing more, I should read less. You know, to avoid picking up on other peoples' styles.
Look, I claim to be awesome, not necessarily bright.
At any rate, after listening to too many writing podcasts natter at me about the importance of reading, and after a conscious decision to spend less time starting at little glowing screens or little brown bottles, I've been reading.
And I've been reading like a writer, and that fact just hit me last week.
The book in question is Iain M Banks' Player of Games, which just felt torturously, terribly slow to me for the first thirty pages or so. Which is to say, this is when I picked up on what he was doing.
Gurgeh is bored with his everyday utopian* existence. He's bored with utopia itself. Nothing means anything to him, and as a result, not much seems to mean anything to the reader.
I know I'm too old to be geeking out over this, but like I say, I've been away a long time, and even when I *did* read I was very much of the mindset that analyzing things was a dull waste of time when there was surface fun to be had just in the reading of a book.
The book *does* pick up, of course; and I was awake until 1 AM on Tuesday polishing off the last 150 pages. I highly recommend it, and am picking up the first Culture novel via Amazon this weekend.
* -- Looks like Utopia to me, anyway. No money, no laws, no hunger, no sickness, no death, no pressures**. Based on this book I'd pledge allegiance to The Culture in a heartbeat.
** --
doogs19 and I are signed up to play Luke and Jared's new game, Freemarket, at GenCon. It looks to me very very very much like it might have been inspired by the Culture.