Teh Joys of Reading

So recently I've started to heavily read books again. It isn't so much that I haven't been reading recently but it has been things like theory books, political journals, ecconomic journals, comic books, short stories, et cetera. I haven't been reading many novels though. This has started to change recently and now it is changing extreamly rapidly. Recently I just finnsihed a book called Brighton Rock by Gram Green. I first heard of Mr. Green because he is reffrenced in Donnie Darko,. They were reading a short story by him and the plot sounded neat. He's always been wandering around in the back of my mind, and then Time did this article on beach reading where they asked several prominate authors what they read when they go to the beach. Good old Brighton Rock showed up again. So I bought it because books are cheaper than comics and they last slightly longer. I like things that last longer.

It was good. No it was better than good it was great. It was great for all the strangest reasons though. Not a whole lot happened in the book. All the voilence happens off screen for the most part, and thous moments aren't nearly as important as all the other stuff that happens. However, the book doesn't draw its power from sequential causal events. It draws it from the fantastic intensity for which it is written. It is one of the most intense books that I have ever read not because of what happens, but because everyone who does anything is extraordinary intense about it. These are people who do not relax, they do not have fun, they all relentlessly persue their own goals with a fabulous fierceness that is compleatly maligned to the action of the novel.

It is unlike anything I've ever read before. It didn't relax. Not once, and that was freaking great.

The same night I finnished up Brighton Rock I consumed a graphic novel called The Marquis. Again something out of my normal reading experience. The book is about an older man who was once a solder and part of the inquisition who lives in a time of sin and debauchery. Then he starts seeing demons and in a holy vision he is given the weapons nessisary to hunt down and kill said demons. NEAT. In between all the moments of action he prays. His prayers are really the highlight of the book. He questions his santiy, his devotion to god and his saints, the nature of his mission, and all sort of things. For the most part he gets no answers and instead works through his problems his own way on his own terms. Honestly, I am so drawn to him because he is such a rare charecter in modern fiction. He is a deeply pious older man who is thrust into extraordinary circumstances. As the book rockets to its conclusion it gets increasingly more intense and I could feel its energy crackling all around me. There is something deeply impressive about both that man's writting and artisitc ability. I have lots to say about it but I think the point I want to make is that it was freaking cool, despite having a main charecter right out of a Hawthorn novel. It was fantastically well written.

It is nice to read great literature again. For awhile I had a hard time doing it. Not so much because I related it to school or anything. Hell I still do all that analyitcal stuff for fun. Sometimes I do it right here even. No it is the pacing. Now I am able to sit back and take as long as I want with my books instead of craming them into my head as fast as possible just so I can go read something else. That is just to much and for awhile I just wasn't used to it. However, that's changed now which is GREAT! I would of hated to rush through Brighton Rock. It was much nicer to just relax and let it happen to me at my own pace. Okay woo! Now I go home.

Oh something I've been meaning to do:

Brighton Rock

Marquis