The other days, a friend of mine acquired a copy of the recent HBO version of Cormac McCarthy's play, The Sunset Limited. Very good. Tommy Lee Jones played White brilliantly, and Samuel L. Jackson was fantastic as Black. At one point, the two men are (surprise) having a conversation. Ok, so they're having a conversation for 90 minutes. At one point in that 90 minutes, Jackson asks Jones how many books he's read. Jones plays a professor, and he realistically says something like (I'm paraphrasing here): "Oh, I don't know. 2 books a week. 100 a year. For 40 years. 4,000."
4,000 books. That seems like a lot, but when put into perspective, 40 years is a long time. Now, this got me thinking about my own reading. I don't read 2 books a week, or at least I won't when I'm no longer a graduate student. There just won't be time.
So let's do some math. Prepare yourselves. If I read just one book a week for the next 40 years, that's about 2,000 books. That will take me to my mid-60s. After that, I may not even be able to see anymore, so maybe 2,000 books is it (or, like the few times I've seen my grandparents "reading," I'll sleep through a few more after that). So what are my 2,000 books going to be?
This is a lot of pressure. For every book I choose, another won't be read. I've operated for a long time under the delusion that, eventually, I would be able to read all the books I've ever wanted to read. Now I know that's not true, even if tomorrow people stopped writing books.
In a moment of panic, I thought, "Wait a second. I'll just look at that list '1001 Books to Read Before you Die.'" Then I thought, "Heck no!" I'm not letting some pretentious list-maker determine how I spend the next 20 years of my reading life.
I have no solutions. Only depression. I'm no longer making goals like: "Read the complete works of Faulkner" or "Read more Dickens." I want to read all of Faulkner (maybe not Dickens), but can I justify that kind of bite into my 2,000?
This is troubling. So troubling, in fact, that I spaced out during the pivotal hour-mark of The Sunset Limited. Which means I'll have to re-watch it. Maybe that bumps my number down to 1,999.
4,000 books. That seems like a lot, but when put into perspective, 40 years is a long time. Now, this got me thinking about my own reading. I don't read 2 books a week, or at least I won't when I'm no longer a graduate student. There just won't be time.
So let's do some math. Prepare yourselves. If I read just one book a week for the next 40 years, that's about 2,000 books. That will take me to my mid-60s. After that, I may not even be able to see anymore, so maybe 2,000 books is it (or, like the few times I've seen my grandparents "reading," I'll sleep through a few more after that). So what are my 2,000 books going to be?
This is a lot of pressure. For every book I choose, another won't be read. I've operated for a long time under the delusion that, eventually, I would be able to read all the books I've ever wanted to read. Now I know that's not true, even if tomorrow people stopped writing books.
In a moment of panic, I thought, "Wait a second. I'll just look at that list '1001 Books to Read Before you Die.'" Then I thought, "Heck no!" I'm not letting some pretentious list-maker determine how I spend the next 20 years of my reading life.
I have no solutions. Only depression. I'm no longer making goals like: "Read the complete works of Faulkner" or "Read more Dickens." I want to read all of Faulkner (maybe not Dickens), but can I justify that kind of bite into my 2,000?
This is troubling. So troubling, in fact, that I spaced out during the pivotal hour-mark of The Sunset Limited. Which means I'll have to re-watch it. Maybe that bumps my number down to 1,999.
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