Due to a weird nerve pinch thing that affected my neck, left shoulder, and all along my back, I was laid up an entire workday last week. Of course this--and the fact that my being left-handed meant I couldn't use my dominant hand for anything whilst being laid up--meant I had to sit in a recliner reading all day. What else was I to do, aside from complete three books (two of them from start to finish)?
With the sudden decrease in Books Readily Available, I turned to my much-neglected Kindle. Though I often prefer the tactile sensations of page-flipping, book-sniffing, and occasionally paper-pressing, my Kindle can always be counted upon to have loads of free, public-domain adventure novels from the late 1800's and early 1900's available. Basically I use it thus whenever I'm jonesing for Deepest Darkest Africa, the melodramatic intrigue of vaguely European fake countries, or the nefarious plans of some mustachio-twirling villains. That, and also whenever I can't make it to the library.
One thing I do like better about Kindles than "real" books is that you can write in them. Of course you can write in "real" books too. I suppose. However my own training as a librarian (where marking a book is A TRAVESTY NOT TO BE VENTURED LEST YOU INCUR FINES) has ingrained in me the need to leave pages clear of underlines, margin-notes, or even writing one's name across the text block. So the idea of "highlighting" or even typing notes next to a passage is still a bit novel to me.**
And because I'm writing in books that aren't necessarily academic (like many of the college student-marked second-hand history or poetry books I've obtained), not only do I not have to worry about making comments that other people will read, I don't have to worry about making comments that are very intellectual.
I'll use my most recent "note" as an example. I'm now reading Allan and the Holy Flower, an Allan Quatermain novel. A story where there's a leopard attack, some rare orchid that's being worshiped by the obligatory Lost Tribe From Whom No Explorer Has Ever Returned, and a bloody amputation after a poisonous white gorilla bites off some guy's finger...all in the first chapter, this is of course a story destined for my light reading before bed. Of course it opens with some rich gentleman hiring Quatermain to take him elephant hunting after he breaks up with his fiancée. Because that's what one does when one breaks off an engagement. One goes to Africa to hunt elephants.
Mr. Scroope said that he would not tolerate such conduct. Miss Manners** replied that she would not be dictated to; she was her own mistress and meant to remain so. Mr. Scroope exclaimed that she might so far as he was concerned. She answered that she never wishd to see his face again. He declared with emphasis that she never should and that he was going to Africa to shoot elephants.
To which I have added a little annotation: Which was rather unfair of him, as the elephants had taken great pains to stay out of the manner entirely.
I don't want to go completely out of control and start heckling my reading choices. However, whenever possible I try to engage in the book I'm reading, to interact with the plot or apply the information so that it's more than an external, rote exercise, but rather the reading material has an effect on my life. Oftentimes applying things I learn is a serious business. Sometimes, however, it's possible interact on a more lighthearted note. I like to call it "creative reading."
*Because the best way to flatten a book that has suffered water-damage is by pressing it under the weight of several other books once it's dried.
**Which is so obviously a fake name that Allan Quatermain comes off as redundant by giving a "the names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent" spiel in his narrative.
Oh I am laughing. My TBR is a mountain, too, forever growing! Adding notes in my kindle book margins is not something I've ever done, though I used to write in the margins of scripture.
ReplyDelete