Seasonal Plume

I picked up The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath) for a few reasons:

1. a couple of friends love it;
2. I liked Paulo Coelho’s Veronika Decides To Die and while their story is not similar, they deal with life inside a mental institution; and
3. I was intrigued with Plath’s life and I liked her poetry.

I started reading the book with high hopes of me enjoying it, as it looked like an easy read (not very thick). Unfortunately, it took me a couple of months to finish. Egad.

The culprit wasn’t work, or real life. I simply wasn’t drawn enough to the book to continue reading once I got to the middle. The major culprit was probably my high expectations — the book failed to grip me at the onset, though I did feel that the writing was very well-done, heavy and visual and it wraps around you. If I was reading, it was mostly for the prose, and the parallels to Plath’s life, rather than the protagonist herself.

(I realize there’s probably a fine line between Esther/Sylvia, but while I was quite intrigued with Plath’s life, Esther’s was another story.)

I picked it up again (and finished it) when 2007 started, and while my view of the book improved once I’d finished, I still feel rather disconnected from Esther. In theory, I should be able to relate to her a bit, because while I don’t suffer from clinical depression, we do have things in common: wanting two seeingly mutually exclusive things at the same time (i.e., living in the country or city); being able to “win” writing/literary-related things but there’s still a struggle to write because of reasons like we haven’t had much “experience” to write convincingly; annoyance with the inequality between the sexes when it comes to morality. Obviously, the feeling of being disconnected from the main character was where this book failed for me; it’s very critical for me that books grab hold of my emotions, especially if the plot is not focused on action/adventure. Since we see the world through Esther’s eyes and somehow, for all the beautiful prose, Esther did not grip me — it was almost fatal.

(At least I wasn’t annoyed at her, which happens rather frequently with books like these, i.e. Catcher in the Rye.)

Part of my reaction to the book, I think, is brought about by a faint sense of confusion as to whether it has enough depth or not. We see a lot into Esther’s personality from the way she thinks and acts, that’s true; but somehow the book leaves me looking for more depth than what is given. I’m not sure if this is because of the writing style or chronology of events, like sometimes I’ve had the feeling that I missed something somewhere because of the way the novel flows.

The verdict: Good read, but not nearly as gripping as I personally expected it to be.

I’d been doing a fair number of reading lately, and I’m slightly ahead with four books read on the third week of the year; the fourth was a re-read, which made reading quicker. I’m tracking progress on my library page, which (for now) unlinked on the main menu and updated manually. (I plan on using the Now Reading plugin for it, but until I have time to sit down and sort itself out, the manually updating WP page will have to do. (I also actually feel like changing the actual layout, but we’ll see.) Much thanks to Vega for pointing it out!) So far, I’ve read the following:

1. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (finished January 3)
2. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk (finished January 13)
3. The Amulet of Samarkand (book one in The Bartimaeus Trilogy) by Jonathan Stroud (finished January 15)
4. Dusk (Po-on) by F. Sionil Jose (finished January 17)

I mean to write down my thoughts of each book in particular soon. :) As for the last, it was a re-read as I wanted to finally finish the Rosales novels by the same author, and in chronological order, Dusk is the first. I’d read Dusk before, but haven’t read the rest, although I know I had picked up My Brother, My Executioner sometime but have not finished it. I’m now reading Tree, the second book according to chronology.

I’m liking the fact that having a goal for the year (50 books) is spurring me to rediscover my love for reading. I’ve always loved reading as a child all the way ’til I was in high school, but when college came and I was caught up in the Whole New World of software, web development, and of course Having A Boyfriend™ — I did not read as much as I should have (nor write, for that matter). I read here and there but I probably read only five new books a year; quite a disgrace.

Now I’ve started to slip back into reading, and I like it. My boss/friend Pao and I were talking on the way to Makati one day early this week, where I told him about my plan to read 50 books this year, and he said that it was something he regretted not doing as a child — read more books. He said he thought that reading is something you develop an interest for when you’re still a child, and once you’re grown it’s difficult to get into if you weren’t keen on reading when you were younger. And I think he’s right, and I’m grateful my parents let us have all the books we wanted (within reason) when we were kids. (My mom used to get angry with me, though, because once we bought a book from the bookstore (usually Nancy Drew) I would read them on the way home, and I’d have finished it already by the time we got home as the travel time then was around an hour and a half. Hee.)

It’s curious, though, about how people exactly get/develop that interest in reading. My older sister and I are avid readers, but our youngest, quite sadly, doesn’t. She tries to keep up with us — she’d propose we sit around and read, but after a few minutes of sitting/lying/etc still and reading, she’d start talking, or get bored with her book. I think she’s getting more interested in books now, which is great; she always wants to go to the bookstore and sit around and read. The thought intrigued me, though — how do people develop that interest in reading? Is it developed, or handed down, or a product of your environment, or…? Maybe it’s all three (or whatever else).

How did you start reading?

I haven’t posted in a while, mostly due to a lot of things I won’t be getting into here (the holidays are one of them, though). I’ve been slowly getting back into reading, although it’s rather slow going. Reason for this is that ever since college, a lot of other interests/activities took up my time, and I was around people who did not really read. Now, that’s even more difficult, given the fact that I work full-time, work on freelance projects, work on my hobbies-turned-responsibilities. And then I have to read. And, read what?

I have a couple of books on my currently-reading and to-read reading list, which I’m hoping to finish. I had the thought that it was probably high time to do something concrete about this, and what better time than now, just before new year? I’ve decided that I’m going to read 50 books next year — at least 30 of them new books. I will read 50 books. That’s roughly one book a week. I can finish one book a day (unless it’s very long and doesn’t grab me early enough) so this should be “easy”, even with full-time work. I initially thought of 100 a year, but I didn’t want to be too ambitious (especially because of work!), as this isn’t like movies which you can finish in two-three hours.

I already have a few which I know will be on that list. I’m still working with Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, and like I mentioned in my journal, I have Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red as well. I’ve put some other books back on my to-buy list, like Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea and Mineko Iwasaki’s Geisha: A Life. I have a few books I was to revisit, like Noli me Tangere and Florante at Laura which were both required reading in high school, but ones I feel I should like reading in a non-academic setting. So, I already have a few books slotted for the 50, and I made a progress meter as well:

50 books for 2007

books: 1 / 50 (2%)

Still zero, obviously. ;) I’m excited! Anyone care to join me? (I’ll probably put a page up somewhere with my running list soon.)