The doldrums, entered…

I entered the reading doldrums earlier this month. I’d been using uni as an excuse to not add books to my tower of hope, and as a result, I reached its very bottom. My reading pile reduced to just a cold and empty space. It called for twin acts of desperation: to raid someone else’s tower, and to re-read something I once loved. A fail. And then a fail.

I’ll start on the controversial note. My housemate has incredible calves, and has adorned them with a literary tattoo: someone had blundered. If that isn’t a sign of a novel making a real and lasting impact on someone, I don’t know what is. So I borrowed her copy of To The Lighthouse.

And I was determined to like it. I have a major crush on Leonard Woolf. I adore Orlando. And Virginia Woolf’s essays. Hell, I even love The Hours, despite the droopiness of Nicole Kidman. But I just couldn’t do it. I’ve always believed that  the books that really touch you, that you really experience as a part of your life, that change the shape of your heart and your brain, are the ones that you come across at the right time. I read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale as an angsty teenage feminist, for example. Beverley Farmer’s The Seal Woman at the end of a confusing not-that-into-you romance. To The Lighthouse I tried to take on when I was writing essays for uni, preparing two books for publication at work, giving a series of poetry readings in short succession, ‘doing’ the Sydney Writers Festival in proper party mode, and having the occasional nap. A brain that is fragmented can’t cope with narrative that’s so subtly fragmented, that shifts in subjectivity so swiftly and skillfully  that any inattention means you lose the plot. Pun intended. I’m sorry Virginia. I’ll visit the lighthouse in less stormy conditions.

And under that brain-battery, I chose to revisit a book I once loved, Nikki Gemmel’s Lovesong. When I read this years ago, I was enchanted by its rich and lyrical writing, and by the control over the plot – the story is remarkable for what it holds back, and slowly reveals to the reader. But on re-reading, I didn’t quite get that far. What struck me then a poetic and beautiful in the language now hit me as overwrought and overwritten. And the voice, speaking in direct address to an unborn child, now felt precious and unconvincing. There’s so much longing and waiting and felt; so little seen and heard and touched. But the disparity in my reactions to the novel shocked me – as much as it saddened me to be losing an old friend. There’s no better indicator of how much I’ve changed as a reader and a writer, how much I’ve learned and taken in and tossed away.

I’ve had a few conversations with other writers since, quite a few of whom had also re-read old favourites with considerable fear. Some wouldn’t do it at all, in case they were disappointed, in case they lost that old pleasure and delight, that onetime joy. Others who believe there are too many other books in the world to revisit an old story. And others yet who make a point of re-reading the books they love on quite a regular basis, and claim they find new secrets and new treasures every time.

That said, I navigated my reading doldrums pretty quickly. But I’m saving that story for next time…

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