Burying my head… in books

I’ve spent an hour this Saturday doing one of my favourite things, reading. Some people call reading a hobby, and it kind of is if you’ve got reading goals or targets and you take time to carefully select your next book, planning the order of things being read etc. Like I do. However I don’t see reading as a hobby, I see it as an essential fixture in my life, like eating and sleeping. The day cannot be completed satisfactorily without spending at least 30 minutes on my latest novel.

Speaking of, my current read is Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. I both love it and hate it. 70% of the way through and I still really have no idea how it’s all going to end. I don’t know which characters I align with, who I want to succeed and who I want to see conquered. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The book has me desperate to keep on going, to keep turning the pages and to get to the end to finally find out what happens. Sarah Waters is a genius at writing suspense. Although I’m not usually into suspense novels, I consider them to be outlandish, or fantastical in most ways, this book is so simple, yet so intriguing that I believe every moment of it. I still know it is fiction of course, but the total immersion is real.

That’s something I teach my students about, storytelling and immersion into the fiction. Sarah Waters has got it down to a fine art. I’m only stopping my reading right now because I far too many other tasks to get don’t this weekend that I’ve been procrastinating over for a very long time. I need to tick some things off my to-do list or I’m going to start feeling like I’m drowning. Only two days of work each week to try and get my life in order? Whoever decided that was enough time? I spend 5 out of 7 days putting all my time and energy and soul into something that benefits other people and which I complete only out of the necessity to get paid. The I’m left with only two days to actually live my life. And in that time, I’ve got to sort my finances, clean my apartment, do the shopping, cook meals and all the other crap that just has to be done in order for you to be able to function again on Monday morning when you’re required to work. Is this all we’re living for?

Well, this was only supposed to be a post about reading and how much I’m enjoying Fingersmith and now it’s during into an existential crisis about the point of my existence. I should just go back to reading and ignore everything else. Bury my head in the sand, that’s the way to go.