Conversation #3: In which our tired, but unbowed, correspondents congratulate each other on finishing Chapter VI, and seal a perhaps foolhardy deal to continue...with a Don Draper handshake

[This email chain happened a few segments ago, when we were both bogged down in Chapter VI.  The specifics are past tense now, but the general stuff is still relevant.]

OM: Tbh, this whole chapter has been a slog.  But I will readily admit that much of that has been my attitude.  I've been struggling to find a reason to continue reading.  And reading something that you don't want to read anymore kinda sucks. 

But it was good to get through a new post.  Felt like I was back on the horse.

JF: Dude, you and I can both read 12 pages of just about anything in a week.  Sure, it helps to actually want to read it, but whatever.  I've had issues reading for years - still do.  There are just very few opportunities time/space-wise for me to read/write.  So I'm actually ok with the slog aspect of this project.  I'm not getting a ton out of it, but I'm still going, and to me that's pretty important.

I generally try to read enough, so I can write about it on Wednesday nights.  If I don't read before then, it's tough to read FW, then read Tindall, then write a blogpost.  And this chapter really sucked, in a lot of ways.

The thing that sucks is that you're right, tho.  Now that I have some taste and interest in reading again - for the first time in years!! - I'd rather be reading almost anything else, ha.  There's a new-ish Bolano that I got last fall staring at me from the top shelf lately.  And Infinite Jest is just so pissed off at me that I stopped less then 200 pages from the end; I carry it in my backpack every day as penance.

OM: You're right, it's not that I can't read FW.  I can, and have for 12 straight weeks or whatever it is.  But I feel like I get it now.  I don't mean I get the whole thing, but I see what Joyce is doing with language, I have learned how to approach the text to extract what meaning I can, and I have broad ideas about what the book is about.  Are my understandings going to grow or change over the next 450 pages? That's the part that is disheartening.  I don't read as much as I'd like to, so why read something that is such a slog when I do have some time?

None of this is to say I've given up.  I haven't.  I think what I've realized, though, is that the blog is important.  It forces me to find something worthwhile in this endeavor.

JF: Same.

That's the thing, bigger picture.  How do we fit heady endeavors - there's probably a better millennial-speak term for a "for its own sake" or "because it's there" thing like reading FW that doesn't carry the perjorative weight of "heady" - into lives already chock full with work and home responsibilities?  I often struggle with that balance, and almost always err on the side of work/home.  That's might not be the best default, but it might be the easiest.  I'd rather be helpful around the house than useless because my head is lost on a page.

And the calculus gets messier for this particular book.  It's not really very "fun" to read.  Yeah, sure, it's challenging, and there's some fun in that, I guess.  But beyond that, it's pretty tough.  And you and I are doing this alone, with no support.  We're outside the academy (Tindall doesn't count - he's dead and annoying) and apart from our families and friends, who, for better or worse, just don't give a shit about JJ or FW.
 

I mean, here's a thumbnail of the text:

FW is a really long book written written mostly in unconventional English about a really long dream by an Irish bar owner who gets caught masturbating in the park by two young women messing around with three soldiers, which includes references to the guy's family - wife, twin sons, daughter - and various people and events in the history of Western Civilization.

And that makes it sound better than it is.  No wonder nobody reads our blog, haha.

OM: Hey, our blog has over 1200 pageviews.  Fame and fortune are sure to follow. I feel like that's pretty damn good, considering only a few people ever have actually read FW.  I'm not sure if this number is accurate, but I think we are the 63rd and 64th people in history to pass the 100-page mark in FW.

Not bad, my friend.  Not bad at all.

JF: The title of this post is totally gonna be "In which our tired but unbowed correspondents congratulate each other on passing the century mark, and seal a deal to continue... with a Don Draper handshake."

Yeah, I have no idea if 1,200 page views is good or not.  It's certainly a lot more than my other lame blogs have ever gotten.  But we only have one follower to the blog itself?  How does that work?

63 & 64, huh?  We should get jerseys with JJ's face on the front and those numbers on the backs.  You can be 63 because I'm pretty sure you got there first.

But what do you think about the point I made earlier?  Finding time for this stuff?  It's frustrating sometimes to me, but then I realize how silly that is.  Hobbies should be fulfilling, not frustrating.  Idk.  I feel like producing content - via the blog, via whatever - is important, as important sometimes as passive reading.  That's probably another point altogether.

OM: That is the title.  Good stuff. 1,200 is a lot more than I thought we'd get for the the entire life of this blog, so yeah, it's good.

I don't have a problem with finding time for reading and writing about literature in a general sense.  But I don't want to read a book that I don't enjoy or that I'm not feeling rewarded by. It's not a matter of reading or doing something else.  The equation for me is "read this" or "read that."  I will die before I read all the books I want to read in this life, so I don't like giving away precious reading time to something that doesn't deserve it.

This goes for any book I pick up. I'm not singling out FW.  I usually make a determination somewhere between pages 50 and 100 of any novel I'm reading.  "Is this worth my time?  If not, why continue reading when there is a world of literature out there to explore?"

JF: I do have a problem with finding time for reading and writing - in a general sense, and in a specific sense with FW.  I just have trouble finding the time/space.  I will die before I read, or write, all the books I want to, and for a few years my response to that has been a resigned shrug to ward off being pissed off.

Funny that I picked this book/project to get back into things.  When you proposed this project, I was like, eh, what the hell, I can read 12 pages of anything in a week, O's a great friend, this will be fun to share together.  I dove in, moved ahead, got behind, caught up, etc.  And looked around and you weren't here for a while, for legit reasons.  But what I realized then is that this isn't just about me doing something to share with you.  It's about doing something almost impossibly difficult, largely alone (reading isn't really a team sport like blogging), for myself.  To prove to myself that I can, that all the things I learned in college and grad school may not matter on a day to day basis, but matter in some other sense of self-worth.  I tell my kids sometimes when they bitch about homework that they're lucky because what I've been best at in my whole life is going to school and learning, and I don't get to do that anymore.

Actually, I do.  I'd say thanks, but I kinda came to this epiphany on my own.  What I'm grateful for, as far as you're concerned, is helping me find the opportunity to have that epiphany and to continue learning and growning my brain.