A good book should leave you... slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. William Styron
A good book can do that to you - for a couple of reasons I think. On a practical level, it can leave you exhausted because you stay up way too late reading it, unable to put it down, totally absorbed by where it is taking you, and mesmerisingly needing to just keep turning the pages, to read to the end of this chapter, and then beyond...
That happens often enough in this household and we are both familiar with that feeling of getting up at normal time after reading way too late - but still, it doesn't last long does it????
Secondly it seems to me that a really good book leaves you exhausted because you get totally involved in it and completely invested in the outcome - with concern for the characters, or intense interest in determining how one earth this can be unravelled, or simply because you are being carried along by a great narrative and the amazing events in a person's life, or fascinating insights into discoveries or journeys.
Any time you get totally immersed in something or somebody, can be tiring and exhausting and for me a good book is no exception. It can take a lot of emotional energy to stay with a good book!
Which leaves me wondering how to illustrate this point, and after much pondering, I simply came up with an early morning shot of the mist rising from the valley. We wake to this sort of light most mornings even if we've stayed up late. As we head closer to summer the sun rises earlier (about 4.50am in December) so we really really need to not be reading still at midnight!
A good book can do that to you - for a couple of reasons I think. On a practical level, it can leave you exhausted because you stay up way too late reading it, unable to put it down, totally absorbed by where it is taking you, and mesmerisingly needing to just keep turning the pages, to read to the end of this chapter, and then beyond...
That happens often enough in this household and we are both familiar with that feeling of getting up at normal time after reading way too late - but still, it doesn't last long does it????
Secondly it seems to me that a really good book leaves you exhausted because you get totally involved in it and completely invested in the outcome - with concern for the characters, or intense interest in determining how one earth this can be unravelled, or simply because you are being carried along by a great narrative and the amazing events in a person's life, or fascinating insights into discoveries or journeys.
Any time you get totally immersed in something or somebody, can be tiring and exhausting and for me a good book is no exception. It can take a lot of emotional energy to stay with a good book!
Which leaves me wondering how to illustrate this point, and after much pondering, I simply came up with an early morning shot of the mist rising from the valley. We wake to this sort of light most mornings even if we've stayed up late. As we head closer to summer the sun rises earlier (about 4.50am in December) so we really really need to not be reading still at midnight!
Great photos.
ReplyDeleteEarly mornings are just wonderful aren't they Penny?
DeleteAre you up before the sun in the morning, I wonder? If so, that's early... I've always wished I could be happy rising before light, but I'm not. Oh well. Such a beautiful mist to wake up to!
ReplyDeleteHi Valerianna - I try not to be up before the sun , but in winter we often are. We are mostly up with the sun - being woken by it and settling into its rhythms whenever we can.
DeleteWhat a beautiful misty view! So similar to a chinese brush painting landscape...
ReplyDeleteHi Anna - it is in a way isn't it? I love the way the mist moves...
DeleteWhat a great quote Fiona. I think I'd use it to describe reading The Book Thief which I first heard about via your blog if I remember rightly. I was so involved in the book I was drained at the end of it. Any more recommendations of that sort?
ReplyDeleteAhh yes indeed Lesley - that was one of the exhaustingly good books wasn't it? My book of the year last year "All that I Am" by Anna Funder (Australian, also linked to WW2). I wanted to email her and say thank you for writing this book. Oh and another Australian beauty - "Burial Rites" by Hannah Kent - set in Iceland tho - it is beautifully written and you do care for the characters. Maybe when it's dark and cold in winter you can sit and read...?
DeleteWell done you! I got as far as the first step - the engraving backgrounds - for thirty of my hundred prints. And cutting them to size which as you remember on our play day, took FOREVER just to get one the right size! I kept going while I was in the correct cutting rhythm .... Looking forward to more playtime tomorrow x
ReplyDelete