Speedy Read

Currently Reading: Dubliners (Signet Classics)


Reader,

Is it Tuesday again already?  Time has been moving quite fast recently, except possibly while working.  Luckily my feet have stopped complaining as much, quickening my recovery time after shifts, but I digress from the topic.

I have noticed over the years that different books require differing amounts of time to read.  Regardless of their length, some reads are more engaging than others.  For example I read Dead Until Dark (A Sookie Stackhouse Novel) in two days.  I read the second one in a day.  Yet I can't seem to get through Dubliners, a much smaller book.

Granted, of course, the Sookie Stackhouse novels aren't a difficult read at all, the language is easy to follow, the concepts aren't hard to understand, and they are all in all 'vacation' reads.  However they are also very engaging.  It is easy to escape into the world Charlaine Harris builds for an hour or five. 

Dubliners however is denser and the prose is more complex, but that alone isn't the problem.  It isn't even the main problem.  The world is harder to slip into.  I do find denser prose to be a slower read than 'vacation' reading like Dead Until Dark, but at the same time if the world the author creates is entertaining enough, I find myself reading just about as fast as an easier read.

Part of the problem with Dubliners is the short story aspect that we talked about last week.  I find that some of the short stories are engaging, but they end just as I was starting to read quicker.  Then I'm introduced to a new character and a new set of circumstances. There isn't enough room to immerse one's self in each before being launched into another.

It fascinates me to see the different ways that stories can engage the reader, or lose the readers attention.  Another good example of this is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Vintage), which I read recently.  The first fifty pages, while the story is setting up seemed to drag on forever.  All the little details that I could have cared less about at the time were torturous.  I wanted to know more about the flowers that tortured the old man in the prologue so.  As Larson pulled the details together, slowly but surely pages were turned faster.  The last half of the book I could hardly put down.  Even the tie ups of the last fifty pages weren't as unbearable as the first fifty had been.  By that point I was invested enough in the characters to care about  the final loose threads, even if the page turning was slowing down.

There are many things that go into making a novel, or other bit of short fiction interesting to people.  Dubliners might be fascinating to some people.  Charlaine Harris's voice might be too dull or flawed for others.  For me it's the tension between characters that makes a novel move.  The give and take of a mystery, the sexual tension of a romance, even the tension between destiny and free will in fantasy.   I like to see how people react when put to the test of tension. 

What aspects do you look for in a book or story?
What makes for a speedy read in your opinion?
Does the density of the prose effect your reading if the story is interesting?

Until next time,
Rose