I've tried harder to be more active in reading books, and give my brain some much-needed nourishment from the wasteland that is the internet. I've already read two books this year, which is two more than I read last year.
I finally finished
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. I think I've had this on my shelf since I was just starting high-school. I bought it, and tried a few times to read it, but it mostly sat there for well over a decade. I figured this would be a good place to start, since the story itself is only 60 pages, which meant that even a slacker like me could manage it. I am glad I finally got to give myself such a silly, strange, and sad story. I wasn't expecting the misery and pathos of the main-character-cum-dung-beetle to come across as strongly as he did. There is a certain humor in a man who is a sniveling insect becomes a sniveling insect, but a certain sadness as he finally becomes the life he led, to the dismay and horror of his uncaring family.
Speaking of high-school, I then went to that old school favorite,
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Another bought-years-ago-and-never-read pick. This was a treat. I breezed through the book in about two weeks' time. Despite being lauded in the covers as a dark comedy, there were only a few times I found myself amused or chuckling. Most of the book is very bitter and sad. I can imagine a live reading of it though being very funny. The one thing that really stood out to me while reading is that, thanks to its constant chronological jumps, there is no other way this story could be effectively told except in print. Some movies try to be non-linear and some succeed, but Slaughterhouse-Five goes far beyond anything in terms of how cavalierly it treats the concept of time (very a propos for the book in general). It makes me think I should finally try to finish Catch-22.
For lighter reading, and to supplement my Orson Welles film-watching, I also picked up
I Am Orson Welles, a biography consisting of a series of conversations between Orson and Peter Bogdanovich. Very entertaining and insightful, although Orson is not the most consistent person in the world when it comes to views or opinions.
Finally, I am going to try to take on something I have wanted to do for years, which is read
Moby Dick. The ultra-huge Newberry Library in Chicago had its recent book fair, with 10s of 1,000s of books for sale. In there I picked up a lovely leatherbound hardcover of Moby Dick and Franz Kafka's The Trial (there was so much more there but I am not rich). At 500 pages, it's a huge step up from the books above, which both had far simpler, less allusive language (and far less pages). I wonder if I can manage it; I read the first chapter or so, and enjoyed it. The language and style of the book is not quite what I was expecting - it feels a smidgen more modern than I had thought it would be in my mind.