Reading

It's funny how lost I can become in reading. Five hours passed today as I finished Wally Lamb's "I Know This Much is True", and in that time I sat, immobile, transported and transfixed. Drank a coffee, and, near the end, finally got a bun to eat. Coming out of a book that immerses me that fully is a bit like a vacation re-entry. I need time to clear my mind of the book, to shake off the tendrils of emotion that were the characters', and not mine. Reading has always done this for me. Perhaps that's why I have favoured scifi books... pulp fiction is more like a shallow bath, easy to step out of and shake off, and less like a deep ocean dunk. Or perhaps more closely, a deep mud immersion. The feeling sticks for so long. Like travelling to a foreign country for a long journey, I come out of a good book with an accent, speaking with a tinge of the author's voice.

This isn't a book review. The book is fantastic, full of imagery of being trapped, of monkeys and rabbits and parallels; but it is all too new and jumbled in my mind to give a coherent reaction.