Book worm

I’m finding it hard to find time to write these days having re-discovered my love for reading. As a child my literature intake was phenomenal; I always had a book at hand. It helped living around the corner from the library; I was never that sporty and there was a lack of green spaces around where we lived. Obviously there were parks but none near enough for me to be trusted too at the age of nine. Anyway, why would I want to go and knock around a park on my own in the rain when two minutes away there was a high ceilinged Victorian building crammed full of shelves and shelves of books?
The children’s sectioned bored me. All the books on offer seemed somehow infantile although I was tempted by Watership Down. Ironically that one intimidated me. It was a monster; thick with dense, tiny printed prose. I was young and my muscles weren’t yet sufficiently developed enough to attempt it. It would of taken me months. Anyway the adult section looked far more tempting. It stretched off in all direction, sub section and categorized and I had to stand on tiptoes to reach the top shelves. I felt like I was stepping into uncharted, forbidden territory and was, initially, surprised that I wasn’t escorted out of it by the librarians.
The revelation that the library didn’t obey the same rules as the video shop set me off with gusto. I could take out any book I wanted and embarked on borrowing the most inappropriate titles I could find. Carrie started me off. I was aware of the film, which I hadn’t seen and the cover whetted my appetite; a girl’s wide eyed, staring, face dripping blood; it was rude not too.
Another thing going for Carrie was that it was quite a slim tome. It didn’t look like a lot of work. That book got me started. I was always a bit of a morbid child; I loved horror films and I lived in that short window of television history when very little got edited for broadcast. I loved it and I loved it gory. I have a memory of watching a strange black and white film, the title of which I probably never knew, early one morning; probably around four in the morning as the sun was coming up. My mum was sleeping on the sofa and I was perched on the edge of it. The bad guy in the film had a false hand that he attached various implements to and in one scene he fitted a cleaver. He raised it high into the shot and held it the there as the music rose but before he could slam it down my mum put her hand in front of my eyes and I missed the money shot. In hindsight I doubt I missed anything, after all it was a fifties film but at the time I couldn’t help but feel cheated. All that suspense and build up has to be rewarded. I whined and moaned to my mother but she was un-repentant; I was too young.
But squirreled away in my room sunk deep into Carrie I could enjoy the pay off. I was reading; my parents couldn’t complain about that, literature being a higher art form after all. Over the next few years I devoured thousands of pages of horror novels. Nastier and more graphic that any film; my warped, impressionable little mind ran wild. I loved it and managed, somehow, not to grow into a serial killer.
In the next two or three years I was prolific I never had my nose out of a book. My father’s dreams of me becoming a professional footballer withered and died as I grew fat and bookish. I wolfed up thousands off pages of print washed down with side dishes of highly calorific food. I was fat fuck, speccy geek and as you can imagine it made me highly popular and attracted the interested of many, many girls.
I’ve always read on and off over the years, the subject matters often changing to suit my mood and reflect my mutating interests but until recently I’ve never matched the volume of those first few years. I’d go through periods of reading one or two books back to back then not reading again for months, sometimes years. Only now am I feeling the same need and obsession I had in those early days; hidden in my bedroom, resenting any interruption.
I’ve set myself an impressive task. I’ve managed to get hooked on the George RR Martin Ice and fire series and they ARE monsters. I’ve eased myself in on various non fiction books that I’ve been meaning to read and I’ve caned the Claudius books as well but they are dwarfed by the Ice and fire books. I’ve read more in the last two weeks than I ingested in the previous two months. And they’ve only just started. Two down, five to go. Out of the seven books only five have been published so far. At this rate I should be up to speed by august but they are BIG; million word monsters, dense and complex and in no hurry to explain themselves. Martin expects you keep up. Minor characters develop into major characters; history, and geography and mythologies are drip fed you; plot developments are hinted at but not explained for hundreds of pages. Slow but never boring; dense but colourful, the detailed descriptions are necessary or there would be diminishment.
I’m fifteen hundred pages into what could easily become a six thousand page story. It makes Lord of the Rings look like a pamphlet yet slowly, slowly he ties up loose ends as he simultaneously sends the story off in a dozen new directions. You never know where you stand; you think you know what’s going to happen and then the story goes the opposite way and the character that you based your theory on suddenly dies.
However I think I’ve put my finger on a major plot reveal. I think I’ve got this one but it seems evident that the pay off won’t be for several books. I’m pretty sure I have it. I think I know the secret of one of the major players. Only time and thousands and thousands of pages will prove me right. I’m going to be so pissed off if I’m wrong.