Sometimes books come into our lives just when we need them.
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“Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.”
― Alain de Botton
I barely read books anymore. It's very bad, and I actually feel guilty for not reading, but I just haven't found anything that has pulled me in enough to finish. Most of the time when I read a book it has to fit the time of my life, or the theme should be relevant to what I'm currently going through.
I tend to use books a bit like therapy. The story takes me to another place and shows me the world through the eyes of another person. What greater experience could there be?
When I look for books to read, it takes a very long time to choose one. I judge it by its cover, of course, and then I read the synopsis, and then a couple reviews. If it looks like something suitable for that time, I'll read the sample. If the sample pulls me in and makes me want to read more, I'll buy it. If the first few chapters really pull me in, I might finish it. I don't finish a lot of books.
Shortly after my grandmother died I was in a dark, angry place. Finding a book to read wasn't really high on my agenda. At the time we shared a house with some friends and I decided to look through their book shelf. Without knowing what it was, I chose a book right there and then off the shelf and decided to just start reading. It would take my mind off of things, at least. Maybe it was the cover, maybe it was the title. Whatever it was, drew me to it.
That book would become one of my absolute favourites.
Sitting on the couch with "The Sense Of An Ending" I devoured every page until it was dark, and then I devoured even more. It was short and easy to read, but it was profound. Perhaps it was more profound because of my grief, and my nihilism, and my distrust of memory. Something happens after you're about 25, I think. You start to remember things that didn't happen. One day you'll remind your friend about something that happened when you were teenagers, and their memory of what happened is totally different. They must be wrong, surely. But it starts to happen more and more. It can be a real bother, if you let it. But that is life.
“What you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
Books can be like little mirrors. We're really reading different parts of ourselves interact with other parts of ourselves.
My grandmother was going through the early stages of Alzheimer's, a wicked disease that causes you to forget. All of your childhood memories vanish, your adult life becomes a blur, even yesterday you cannot recall. You lose your identity, in the later stages, until you are a shell.
The book deals with memory, and time, and the stories we create about ourselves. The protagonist is remarking about growing old, and how time changes the things that we remember.
“How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
It wasn't a feel good book. In fact, it was quite depressing and bleak. But I was depressed, and I was bleak, and I needed to go there for a while and come out the other side.