I’m a late adventurer for reading, and also an extremely slow reader. I’m not sure which came first, I didn’t like reading when I was young because I was a slow reader, or I am a slow reader, because I didn’t read much when I was young? Nevertheless, I love reading now, even if I am still a very slow reader. Maybe this will change one day.
I say this with hesitation, but it usually takes me months to read a book. Aside from feeling slightly embarrassed from what others might think, I don’t really mind it too much myself. I guess, if I had a choice, I would wish to read slightly faster, so I can read through more books. But really, its not so bad. I am mostly just happy that I finally found my chemistry with books and now want to savor each word as we interact. I literally do read each word when I read. Yes, even the is, but, and ands... I don’t know how to skim and don’t understand how others can. This must be why I’m so slow. I feel like a teenager being in love for the first time, never want to miss any little glance, slight movement, blurred out words coming from the other person. I’m afraid I might miss something if I skipped a word.
Even with such diligence and carefulness, I still often come across passages that I don’t fully understand. Some of it may be because I’m still a learning reader, others, might be exactly the reason why reading is so addicting and satisfying. Bizarre, I know. How can something be satisfying when you cannot fully achieve the satisfaction of thoroughly understanding it? I don’t know, but I like it. It’s always challenging and never predictable. Its like there are bite sized wisdom scattered throughout books, some more than others, that I stumble upon. Even if I don’t fully grasp all its meaning, I can tell the flavor is there. I can keep chewing on it and more meaning will keep coming out. It’s mysterious. It’s satisfying. It’s profound.
Other times, I run into lines of words that just resonate, and I’m impressed that someone can put such intangible emotions or believes into such precise and effective words. That is also satisfying!
Since I started reading, I’ve been meaning to write this post. Partly, to have an ode to reading, but more practically, to have a place to remember these bite sized wisdom that I come across as I read. The older I get, the more I realize, sometimes, if something is worth remembering, we’ve got to write it down somewhere, otherwise, it may be lost forever. And that would be a sad thing.
So, here’s the first of many… The current book I’m reading, based on a friend’s recommendation, is Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. It took me a while, a pretty long while to finally get to the main meat of the story. I didn’t really mind the religious setups in the beginning. It was interesting as I have very little knowledge or experience on the topic. There were definitely worth remembering lines from that section that I want to write down here, but will have to go back and find later. Now, the voyage is about the start, I’m looking forward to it. But just before it,
“Things didn’t turn out the way they were suppose to, but what can you do? You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.” (91)
Sometimes, we need to be reminded of exactly this.
