Member-only story
A short quarantine reading list
Even before a ton of ordure hit the propeller-style cooling device I’d only read three books this year.
Three.
Since the age of six or seven I’ve been capable of reading three average-length books a day. Once, when I was 9, I read 1,000 pages in a day, to see if could.
On another occasion (again, pre-teen) I read The Lord of the Rings trilogy in three days.
The point I’m sidling towards is that it is a sign of spiritual/ emotional/ logistical malaise when my word-consumption dips to such low levels.
(The other obvious conclusion is I was backward as a kid, which is fair, but there were reasons.)
Being almost too far gone in anxiety to even read a book is new and unnerving. Books have always been a reliable portal away from the unappetitliche present, but the present present has got me so tied in knots I’m afraid to miss anything.
Initially, I tried to negotiate this in my usual Protestant, eat-your-beet-greens-they’re-good-for-you fashion. That is, I started a book about Palestine. If there is one thing more depressing than coronavirus, it’s the situation of Palestine…
