So I finished off the last book in my latest stack of library acquisitions just over a week ago, and with the prospect of final exams looming, I decided it would be in the best interest of my degree if I refrained from another trip to the hallowed library halls for a bit. While it may have freed up some time in my hectic graduate-student schedule to cram in all the lessons I should have been learning all semester long, it also left a gaping hole in my life that I hadn't quite expected. It wasn't until last night that I realized that I am almost never without my next literary conquest. Even if I don't have time to read it, I've almost always got my next book on hand, taunting me from shelf or nightstand, reminding me that it'll be waiting when I get my homework done or when I get home from work. One week bookless was enough to drive me just a little more insane.
Oh, I wasn't entirely bookless, of course; in a pinch, I can make do with the well-read friends on my shelves. But I am hopelessly addicted to storytelling, and there's something about the way a book sounds inside my head that nothing else can fill. Believe me, I've tried this past week. I've blazed through episode after episode of television series on Netflix, scrolled through pages of Pinterest finds, flipped through every page of every magazine in the house...which offered meager pickings given that I only subscribe to a weekly news summary and a monthly science and technology mag. None of it worked. Something was missing, even with all the stress of final exams, presentations and papers. I wasn't whole without the banked embers of a story in the back of my brain.
I caved in today. I was trying not to check out any library books that I'll have to remember to return over the summer, given my hectic new work schedule, but I figured "just one can't hurt, can it?" I was so proud of myself when I walked out of the library with, yes, just one book. I sat in the sun, enjoying a well earned chocolate and caramel tart from a local bakery (a true genius decided to put the farmer's market between work and the library... I try to avoid that walk on days when the market is running, since my relationship with baked goods is similar to that with books) and dove into a story.
I was trying to discuss this with my mother this evening. She's a high school English teacher (whose students used my "Why I Read" post for a class exercise...thus all the comments) and in general she understands exactly where I'm coming from, but tonight I got so tongue tied I'm not sure even she understood what I meant. I was describing the voice in this new book, Jo Walton's Among Others. Not the voice of the narrator, per se, but rather the voice of the book itself, the way it sounds and feels in my head. "Most fiction," I said, "feels very dense and layered and sort of furry, like velvet, or a tapestry with all these different threads woven together. It sounds in my head like a soundtrack that's been expertly edited and balanced so that all the pieces fit together. It doesn't sound like reality." I went on to explain how my new read is different, but part of my brain fixated on that description. I'd never realized it before, but it's true. There's a place in my brain where stories play out, and though they all feel different or sound different, they're all staged in the same place. To butcher some biochemistry, it's like books are their own special kind of neurotransmitter, and though I can try substitutes (television and movie stories, articles), my brain knows they're substitutes. Eventually it starts craving the real thing. I am addicted to books in ways I never even realized. Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad. Either way, it makes for an interesting finals week.
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