The Speed of Reading
Everyone has a different way of reading a book. Some people read fast. Some people read slow. And there are those who read at a pace somewhere in between, a more leisurely pace I'd like to think. I count myself part of the latter group. I read books, which is what I'm referring to here, at a pace that, at times, seems to be rather quick, mostly when I'm close to the end of a book and just want to get it finished, or somewhat slowed down to such an extent that it seems like I only flip a page once every half an hour. For the most part, I breeze along at a steady clip, neither speeding or plodding along.

What throws the whole curve off, though, is when you put a book down for a day or two, mostly even one day is enough to notice an effect. Putting down a book, especially when you're in the middle of a chapter, is dangerous business. What occurs, at least to me, is that I'll pick it back up, start reading again where I left off, and, inevitably, let out a groan about how this particular passage seems to be overly long. Say, for instance, you're reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time, as I happen to be doing as I write this, although I'm not reading and writing at the same time. That'd be counterproductive, or maybe multi-tasking, or whathaveyou. Anyway, I'm almost finished with the last book of the trilogy, and I have to say that if someone, Benedict, hadn't lent a sympathetic ear to my plight about how the books seem to labor on forever, hashing on plot points that are neither important nor serve to advance the plot any quicker, I would have thought I was just suffering from another attack of having put the book down for a day, which I haven't done with this one but with the second. So, I wasn't crazy, or at least no crazier than Benedict, which is measured on a sliding scale. The book is long, really long. Which leads me to address the notion of editors.

One book I'm reading right now is Dale Peck's collection of reviews entitled Hatchet Jobs. In one of the reviews, for David Foster Wallace's book Infinite Jest, Peck opines about how the book, which is over 1,000 pages, has about 200 pages of good writing contained within. Obviously, this implies that some severe editing could/should be done. What about Tolkien, though? Isn't it also true that some of the more laborious passages center around the characters walking, eating, sleeping over and over ad nasuem? Don't most books condense time? Are you supposed to feel like you've been on the very same journey for the same length of time as the characters? I doubt it. Most books aren't that literal, and the narrative progresses ahead with leaps and bounds, or at least it should

Tolkien, who seems conflicted on many fronts, must have been in love with each and every passage he wrote. No part of the journey could be left out. Why? Well, I guess he felt that if he didn't write about the characters simply walking from place to place there wouldn't be any reason to write about all the places they journey to, which is another caveat of mine. Must every place have some name and history that is explained in depth rather than simply alluded to? Aren't there just parts of a forest that are just that, parts, with no lore behind them? Not in the Tolkien universe. Every tree, shrub, rock, crevice, moutain, dirt pile has some long, storied past that must, must I say, be explained. Or maybe it just seemed that way.

Laboring through this, I'm reminded that people I know have read these books multiple times. How, I'm not sure, but the joke by Seinfeld about rereading Moby Dick and having Ahab and the Whale becoming fast friends seems to apply in the case even more so. I know I'd rather take the chance on finding the Melville's masterpiece has changed than return to Middle-Earth for more travelogue-like narratives anytime soon.