Despite lockdown and having lots more free time I haven’t really read much more than what I would normally. A huge failure and a glaring omission on the self-inflected backlog of stuff I wanted to catch up with! After recently watching a few Youtubers attempting to read as much as possible in 24 hours -Readathons!- I decided to do something similar, and yesterday against better judgement, I set my alarm and woke-up at 3.30AM. It was horrible.
The first thing I did was jump in the shower to try and wake-up, throw on my Kigu, and open as many curtains as possible. Half an hour later I sat down with Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and started reading. A book about agents of censorship, mass media, fake digital friends and advertising as news was maybe not the best thing I should’ve read given The Year of our Shitstorm: 2020, but Ray Bradbury is someone i’ve never read before (and I received this recently for my birthday!). I got two parts through, and completely exhausted I had to go back to bed. Not quite the nap I was expecting, I slept a whole two hours instead and woke up at 8.30AM. Yeah.
Reading for 24 hours solid and from that early maybe wasn’t for me, but I still decided I would spend the day reading. No other plans, nothing to do, lets give it a shot, a bit more casually.
I finished the third part of Fahrenheit 451, and I really liked it. A lot of the themes really resonated with me given the current climate and recent personal social-media disdain. It’s a scary book about a future dystopia but -as with Orwell’s 1984- increasingly difficult to separate from actual present day. The core of the story deals a lot about censorship through summary and media and entertainment being instantaneous and quicker. Getting up as early as I did I was tired as hell, but there was maybe something here about enjoying the words and the structure of them that indicated speed-reading in general was kind of missing the point. I think I agreed.
The Offing by Benjamin Myers is something i’ve been reading slowwly over the last few weeks after picking it up on a whim. The cover -a painted postcard illustration of a summery Robin Hood’s Bay by Frank Sherwin- sold me pretty much immediately, as did the blurb. The book deals with a disillusioned young man (yay) leaving his hometown village and exploring the countryside before befriending and living with an older woman who introduces him to culture, poetry and philosophy. None of that is a euphemism. She’s a very strongly realised character and her dialogue comes across as genuine belief. While not initially likeable there is a lot of depth to her, in her beliefs and wanting to educate the main character. BUT it was a lot of the supplementary text elsewhere with all the descriptions of walking the coastline, swimming in the summer water, and all the flora and fauna that decorated the peripherals that really got me It’s descriptive and pleasant, sunny, and warm to read- a really good antidote for currently. Both characters grow as the book -and summer- progresses, and it was all quite comforting if i’m honest.
The final book I read yesterday was We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson. I’ve had this one a while and I picked it and The Haunting of Hill House up shortly after the Netflix show of the same name. I really liked that when I read it, but I immediately loved ‘Castle as soon as I started. It taps into small-town paranoia and ostracising in a big way, and while I initially thought this was going to be an honest direct horror it’s something entirely different, and better for it. The book follows a girl -Mary Katherine- who lives in a big creepy New England house with her sister whose other immediate family has passed away quite horrifically. The book unfolds from there with her daily routine, rituals, and rationalising, and she’s a fascinating character- possibly one of my all time faves. This is now the second Shirley Jackson book i’ve read and I noticed some very recurring themes, like I noted above, plus lots more i’d rather not reveal due to plot. This one isn’t immediately scary in a conventional media sense but it’s themes, and the odd and creeping sensations, and even how plausible it could be, it’s actually wickedly deviant. I think that’s what I liked most. I might write more spoilery about it in the future- it’s definitely one of the best books i’ve read.
So yesterday in full I completely failed THE READATHON but I did get through two and a half books at a comfortable, relaxed place. Other than a *big* status update I didn’t really use any screens, I walked the dog, and I ate pizza; it’s probably one of the most relaxed days i’ve had in a while, and it was good to just…breathe if i’m honest. I’m going to keep reading at my usual slow pace but I do want to have a Reading Sunday again, hopefully next month. I’ve already got a full backlog of a bookcase lined up.