Lately, I’ve been reading long books. Finished Middlemarch. Almost done with Moby-Dick. Next up, perhaps Anna Karenina?

I’ve been finding long books easier to read than short books. Each time I start a book, I tend towards dislike. It’s unfamiliar. A new world. A different syntax. Et cetera. A long book affords me the luxury of time — to ease in, to acclimate, and to stick around for a good while. As the familiarity develops, as the contours of the new world sharpen, as the different syntax begins to land smoothly on my cognitive processes, the book becomes an increasingly welcome presence in my life. And soon enough, I start longing for return to this little linguistic lovely nest of mine, tightly bound, and highly portable. Which makes finishing books such a terrible affair. Which is why it’s taken me as long to read the last three chapters of Moby-Dick as it took me to read the first fifty. Which is why I start reading other books instead of finishing those I’m close to finishing. Ergo, why I’m stalling on Moby-Dick with the help of Notes from Underground, The Good Terrorist, and The Left Hand of Darkness.

Anyways, I’m not sure how to wrap this up. So, I won’t!