Book report, part 1

We didn't go away this year, for a variety of reasons. Usually when we travel,  I do a great deal of reading and so decided to undertake to do some at home as well. Choosing a book is always the rub.

I have always tended toward reading non-fiction rather than fiction, which I don't think reflects well on me (and why else would someone do something other than to have it reflect on them). Non-fiction is simply too easy, and worse, much initially interesting non-fiction doesn't bear finishing. From my experience, a great number of popular and/or worthy non-fiction books make their points clearly and well within the first 50-100 pages. The rest is merely amplification and explication. No matter how well-written and interesting, non-fiction books tend to have a point of diminishing returns. If I get the point, I get the point. I don't need it explained and exemplified to me repeatedly.

Fiction, on the other hand, is a building up process, and requires more patience. You inhabit a new world and have to decide if you want to live in it for a while, and you never want to leave the best of the lot. I also like when you reach the point where you're thinking and sometimes even talking in the style of the book. This is particularly true when reading something like Jane Austen. That kind of language is addictive.

It's hard to choose fiction, so even though I rarely read it, I'll often read book reviews just to keep current. It was in this spirit that I read a critic's top ten list, and though I didn't read anything on the list, I did see something that intrigued me. In her description of a book called "The Black Count", a biography of Alexandre Dumas' father, Salon's book critic, Laura Miller begins: If you’ve ever read Alexandre Dumas’ swashbuckling novels — and if you haven’t, what a sad, drab reading life you’ve led, my friend —and it stopped me dead.

How had I never read any of those books- Three Musketeers and the others? The comment cut me to the quick. It was Christmas Eve Day and all the libraries were closed, but I was certain that the Gutenberg Project would have all of them, so down to my iPad it loaded and I have spent the past few days immersed in The Count of Monte Cristo. All I can say here is Oh. My. God. For more, see part 2.