Books and Me

A good friend from college once told me the following: "If books were fashion, dear, you would be super chic." I seem to cotton on to bestsellers and excellent literature before it hits the mainstream: the most notable example being Harry Potter--I read the first book roughly six months after it had been released in the United States, read the third almost immediately upon its release. The public didn't cotton on to these novels, not really, until the time for the fourth approached.

And by then they were huge. I credit the Harry Potter series for many connections I've seen forged over the past several years, for an increase in the number of people I see reading--and a corresponding increase in the willingness of people to talk about what they're reading. It's made my life a bit easier, because, you see, books are my language.

But as of 5:40 this evening, they are a language I wish I had taught myself a little bit different. 5:40 was when I finished the 7th and final installment of the Harry Potter series. And I had a twinge of sadness as I closed the book and set it down: what, if anything, will fill the void left in me now that I'm done? I wish I knew how to get absorbed in a book in a slow way--how to savor it and draw out the experience--but I don't. When it comes to books, once I'm in, I'm all in. No turning back.

The anticipation builds up to such a point it almost (almost, mind you, but not quite) becomes anticlimactic. And, for me, the anticipation means channeling awesome amounts of energy into other things. Nothing else I've found gives me that type of energy. Nothing. Nowhere.

And this is the other thing about reading Harry Potter: I can't write anything for a week or two afterward without crumpling it up, throwing it away, and wondering, "What's the use? It's not like I'll end up writing the next 'book blockbuster' like Harry Potter . . ."