How I Waste My Money

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree in regards to our tastes in literature.  (You know who you are.)  ;)

I started reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and suffice to say it's a very beautiful book in many ways.  There are passages, in the little bit I was able to get through, that are simply breathtaking. 

However....

I have never been a fan of anything that beats me over the head.  I got through about thirty pages before I couldn't handle the asides anymore, the bolded stop signs making sure I'm paying attention to the clever parallels, symbols, and philosophies.  Those things are there, and are brilliant, but I don't want to be pointed to them, not blantantly.  I like making realizations.  I like connecting the dots.  I like getting swept up in metaphor. 

What I don't like is being treated like I'm too stupid to make those realizations, to connect those dots, to admire those metaphors.  I know, I'm going to get bombarded by tomatoes for saying this.  And I'm sure Zusak didn't mean to imply his audience couldn't make those connections for themselves.  I'm sure he meant it as a parallel to the thought control rampant during the Nazi reign.  I'm sure he thought it was an interesting structure for his book.  And that's fine if he really achieved the effect he was going for.

But it's not for me.  I felt insulted.  I tried to get over it; I tried to get past one passage that particularly angered me.  I read on for a few pages until another cropped up and I realized I was going to be angry for more than five hundred pages and not in the way someone should be angry when reading about the atrocities during the wars.

And how is it wasting my money?  For the same reason I've been struggling this whole year with what I read:  I spent money buying this book.  I felt sure I would love it and I felt confident I'd have no regrets.  Whenever I read comments about this book they were all glowing and amazed.  I thought, how could I go wrong with this one?

I really need to just get random books from the library.  For anyone who reads my blogs (which is one person, so I'm sorry you have to hear this AGAIN) you know I've said a thousand times that I should just go to the library.  I should just pull five random books.  It always turns out the same when I do so - they are balanced as far as a sliding scale of good and bad writing.  My worry is that my little library doesn't have a great selection, and when I try to get books transferred they often don't come in and I'm nothing if not a creature who has to have what I want when I want it.  I'm not proud of that realization, but I've come to said realization.  With no one else's help, thanks.

I also have a very hard time making a decision, because reading a book takes time, and I've forced myself into a schedule and I don't want to waste time either.  And since this year's track record is a bunch of major disappointments, I'm worried about the future and I'm worried about feeling anxious when it comes to reading.  It is now in the back of my head with everything I read that I might hate it, that excitement may warp into frustration.  Maybe I should only pick up books I think I'll hate and it will turn out that every one of them is brillant beyond belief.

I know I'm really doing this to myself.  Maybe...maybe I should read The Book Thief and just skip any bolded parts.  I wonder if that would be possible?  I'm sure it would be.  I'm sure I'm working myself into a frenzy for no reason other than letting myself get distracted...again.