for some reason this summer, i cannot read. i have picked up at least 3 novels that i cannot get into, cannot finish. i do not know what my problem is.

first, it was Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. I'm on page 71. I have been since June.

then it was White Teeth by Zadie Smith. I think it was stupid of me to try, because i had started it back in '03, and couldn't get into it then, either. i just hear so much about how wonderful she is, that i thought i'd give it another go.

I was able to read one book ... the Attack, by Yasmina Khadra. It was very odd that I read that book when I did. How long has this "Middle East Crisis" been going on? 3 weeks? Then I read this book 4 weeks ago. I finished it, and practically the next day, things blew up over there. This book is about [not a spoiler! it's on the flap in the book] an Arab-Israeli doctor who was treating patients that were victims of a suicide bomb in a restaurant in Tel Aviv ... and was later informed that his wife was found among the rubble, and that her injuries were consistent with that of a suicide bomber. She was the bomber. He had no clue. The book was about his journey in trying to figure out what happened - with her, mostly.

Then, I was very excited to see that one of my favorite authors, Jose Saramago, had come out with a new book, Seeing. When I then saw that it actually is tied into his older book, and my favorite book of ALL TIME, Blindness, I bought it.

But it kind of isn't good. I couldn't put my finger on why for a while, but on about page 75, I realized that there was no character. No narrator, no protagonist, no nothing. Now I'm page 120, and I *think* that the story is focusing on a character. Maybe.

I find myself looking wistfully at hte girls' shelves. Maybe I'll re-read Watership Down? Perhaps pick up Eragon. Something a wee bit more .... story driven? I'm not sure what it is I'm looking for - whatever it is - I'm not finding it.

posted by Zuska @ 12:45 PM

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