My irritable, vacillating mood of the past few weeks has not only made me unbearable to be around but unfocused as well, as I cannot hold on to a single motivation without being lured away by another. And hence I've started now three different texts and fear that I will not finish a single one. I was very excited to begin my first de Sade, and merely meaning to glance at its first sentences one night before bed I instead found myself staying up nearly 'til morning reading it.
However, my now inflexible, sour mood makes the novel unbearable to even open and so instead I returned to my bookshelf to skim the titles for something more somber. I thought about re-reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but resisted as I don't have the time, nor the composure, right now to begin my Joyce unit. (It's quite derisory the number of authors whose novels I seem to collect but never read.) Instead Dostoevsky's The Devils caught my eye and knowing full-well that perhaps it was a poor choice given it's length and my current flightiness, I nevertheless tucked it into my messenger bag and headed to my reading spot.
And I am officially in over my head!
With an obnoxious number of Wikipedia tabs opened and me avoiding them by griping here, I realize that while reading Book I of the novel, I will most likely spend more of my time on the internet researching 19th century Russian history and terms than reading the book itself. But perhaps losing myself in this endeavor will aid in freeing me from the state of self-absorbed wallowing that has rendered me so useless lately. Simultaneously, both excitement and pessimism inundate me now.
...
"You may be sure that those who cease to understand the people and lose all contact with them, at once and to that extent lose the faith of their fathers and become atheists or are indifferent."
However, my now inflexible, sour mood makes the novel unbearable to even open and so instead I returned to my bookshelf to skim the titles for something more somber. I thought about re-reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but resisted as I don't have the time, nor the composure, right now to begin my Joyce unit. (It's quite derisory the number of authors whose novels I seem to collect but never read.) Instead Dostoevsky's The Devils caught my eye and knowing full-well that perhaps it was a poor choice given it's length and my current flightiness, I nevertheless tucked it into my messenger bag and headed to my reading spot.
And I am officially in over my head!
With an obnoxious number of Wikipedia tabs opened and me avoiding them by griping here, I realize that while reading Book I of the novel, I will most likely spend more of my time on the internet researching 19th century Russian history and terms than reading the book itself. But perhaps losing myself in this endeavor will aid in freeing me from the state of self-absorbed wallowing that has rendered me so useless lately. Simultaneously, both excitement and pessimism inundate me now.
...
"You may be sure that those who cease to understand the people and lose all contact with them, at once and to that extent lose the faith of their fathers and become atheists or are indifferent."
No comments:
Post a Comment