The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie

There is a part of me that has a very very hard time not finishing a book. It’s the same part that also has a hard time throwing things away. You should see the big ‘ol tub of high school memorabilia I have sitting in the garage, not to mention the stack of clothes in the upper reaches of my closet that might fit again someday. Point is, I try to stick with books and see them through to the end, no matter how painful.

Except this time. According to the receipt/bookmark I found about 100 pages into The Satanic Verses By Salman Rushdie, I started reading it back in December of 2009. If my math is correct, that means right after my first semester of grad school. So I can get away with saying I didn’t finish it then because I already had a hectic reading schedule and could not fit in “just because” books.

The fact is though that then, just like now, I got bored.  This is the highbrow, super dense, thought provoking stuff I am supposed to love. This is what English classrooms are made for and made of. All sorts of parallel story lines, complex characters, symbolism, complicated imagery, dreams, questions about what’s true, what’s pretend and what’s the difference.  It’s English major catnip.

And while I do love a book that deals with life’s big questions, I can only take so much. And Rushdie packs his books with a lot. Too much for me.Too many shifts in perspective. Too many shifts in character. Too many dreams within dreams to the point where you have no idea who is where or what.

Problem is, I’m not an existentialist.  I don’t spend my days struggling to define good and evil. I don’t spend nights lying away wondering about who god is or if he’s out there at all.  I have more practical things to think about, like paying rent, figuring out how to save for retirement, and how to stop my nail polish from chipping. So when it comes to my reading material; it’s not that I am vapid, I just don’t want a book to make my head spin in an attempt to get me to think. I do that on my own just fine.  

So as guilty as I feel admitting it, I am giving up. Tapping out. Waving the white flag. Quitting. Throwing in the towel. I just can’t do it.