Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Still At Swim-Two-Birds

Back at the beginning of January I noted that I was reading Flann O'Brien's disreputable classic. (Just the book to give your sister, if she's a loud, dirty, boozy girl said Dylan Thomas and, as always in such matters, he was right.) And now, I'm pleased to report, I'm still reading it being barely passed the halfway mark - though it's really a fairly short novel. Whence the delay? I could plead pressure of work but, frankly, I just don't want to finish the book: it's really that good. Even if you don't know quite what is going on (about a third of the time, I'd say) every passage has something to savour, and reread and reread.

I occasionally see advertisements for something called Speed Reading courses. I'm thinking of devising a Slow Reading course to sell the masses. Wouldn't that be a lot more useful?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oddly enough, I have such a book. The title is How To Read Slowly by James W Sire. Although it is sometimes marketed as a Christian how-to book, it is actually obviously written by someone who enjoys reading with a literary eye, for the pleasure of good writing and with abhorrence for bad.