I’m not sure I love reading books.
I’ve been assigned the label of “reader” since I learned to decipher the words on a page, yet I don’t feel that I truly am—at least not in the traditional sense.
I enjoy the idea of being engrossed in a book to the point of fantasizing about it during the day, wishing for a silent moment to satisfy the curiosity of finding out what happens next.
I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this way.
I’ve come close?
Possibly?
I’ve wished to lie in my bed on a summer morning, reading. The day ahead would be filled with no plans, and the curtains over my head would waft from the open window breeze. I would be truly focused, speeding through sentences and paragraphs.
But this is a feeling. It is not the book in front of me. The story could be fictional, or it could be something dense and interesting, yet objectively unable to draw me into a different, comforting world. The words are not the important part.
I am definitely sure that fantasy has never been my favorite genre. Yet I want to be dedicated to a 12-book, world-building fantasy series and consider myself a part of a fanbase, having a genuine stake in what an author decides for the future of some fictional being.
This distorted fantastical allure might all trace back to fourth grade, when I felt like the only student at recess who had an active aversion to playing Warrior Cats.
Every so often, when I try to read fantasy, I succeed in having a genuine connection to the story.
Most times, though, I am an intruder in some fictional world. This is not because there is an obstruction of ink preventing me from becoming united with these imaginary figures. It is because I don’t enjoy the story as much as I merely want to. I am not a dedicated fan, but I pretend to be, and I am disingenuous. I am faking concern for characters, for a world that others have inhabited much deeper than I have, even in my pretending.
I am getting ahead of myself, falling too deep into the intricacies of a single case study in my history with literature.
I can, and generally do, enjoy reading. I mean “generally” because reading the story in the moment is not the feeling for which I truly care. It is instead the feeling that comes afterward, months later.
I can look back, and this narrative, whatever it may be, will blur with my own memories. The tiredness of a November, my back ironically resting against a bookshelf, is interwoven with the lives of characters of which I recall only fragments. It was something like a heist, the frigid winter in some providence, some character with a knack for leaping over roofs. Something like that.
The “some” is what sticks. It becomes molded into my life, like bright blue paint mixing with a vat of pure white, turning into a light-blue, inextricable mixture until neither myself nor the story remains truly distinct.
I enjoy stories when they are in retrospect.
I like reading for the way it feels when it’s long over, and the book hasn’t been opened in a year.
