Kicking it to the curb

As long as I've been a reader, I've felt a responsibility to finish a book. I'm still hauling around novels from undergraduate classes that one day I mean to finish. Henry James', The Ambassadors. George Meredith's, The Egoist. Sir Walter Scott's, The Heart of Midlothian. But I've also reached a point in my life when I recognize one day, I'll run of time. I might not finish all those books. I definitely won't finish all the knitting projects. And so, I'm trying to be discerning. All right, cutthroat. This is my year of heartlessly not finishing books. Kicking them to the curb, if you will, for not grabbing or holding my interest. If I gave the raw numbers, the year would not be deemed a success. But with each volume, I try to give myself a pat on the back and let go of a little guilt.

This week was big. I cut loose two novels by authors whose past works I've enjoyed -- Katie Fforde's, Bidding for Love and Jane Smiley's, Ten Days in the Hills. Fforde wasn't that hard; I've felt she was tiredly working old territory as I slogged through her past few books. The opening page of this one introduced our harried heroine and her pregnant cat and I just thought, go no further. I had far more hope for Smiley, but her first chapter was so tedious -- the characters unappealing, the subject matter too forced, the writing style too didactic. I skipped ahead, hoping that new characters would hold my attention. By page 80, I knew I was out of luck and returned it to the library that afternoon. It was a double victory -- in the past I would have purchased the hardback based on her track record. I'd now saved myself $26.00, as well as a lot of time.

Unfortunately, I did force myself to finish a lackluster mystery, the latest in a series that I can abandon. I hung in there because I'd just finished a luminous novel, and I knew whatever I read next wouldn't be able to compare. The novel was A Day at the Beach, by Helen Schuman, a writer I hadn't heard of. It's about Manhattan on 9/11, and the path one couple takes in its immediate aftermath. I'd consciously avoided such novels, but this one was surprisingly arresting and so beautifully written I couldn't put it down, finishing it about 2 a.m. Among other things, it posed the question, does art make life worth living? Does it really help redeem disaster? I love discovering finds like this, and it's something that's happened more often as I've taken advantage of my local library, eight blocks from home and on the way to everything.

It's the discovery that makes reading so satisfying, not duty.