Ahem, regarding that Harry Potter book....

[shadowkat]

[Difficult week. So not worth going into. Work is making me crazy again, enough said.

If you don't happen to read Harry Potter - please skip the following message}

As anyone who has read Harry Potter probably already knows, unless you happen to live beneath a rock, the last book in the Harry Potter series is due to come out on July 20th or thereabouts. When it does - there will no doubt be a race amongst everyone on the net to see who can finish and post on the thing first. Last round someone did it in under two hours - which was a record for a book that is close to 900 pages in length.

I don't understand this. What's so great about being able to read and comprehend an 800 and some page book in 2 hours flat? Who cares? IT can't be that enjoyable. It's over. Then what? Sure you can go back and re-read it - but it's not the same. Don't you want to savor it - the experience of reading it for the first time, seeing the story unfold?? Re-read paragraphs as they cross your eyes, laugh at the inside jokes and sly wit? (Which would be missed on a scan, one would think). Fall into the world? How can you if you sped through the thing? No wonder people re-read the books - they barely read the things the first round. And assuming you did get every nit and cranny, not just the general gist - it couldn't have been that good if you want to rip through the thing, scanning the words? Sorry, I just can't wrap my brain around the appeal of doing that. My Granny does or rather used to do the same thing - she read Gone With the Wind in 13 hours flat - it was over 1000 pages. She timed it. Uh. Okkkay. But couldn't for the life of her remember the details, just the gist. I mean - why does everything have to be a race? Or for that matter a competitive sport? Even reading a book? A book you claim to love no less? It's not like anyone is keeping score...

Personally? I prefer to read books at my own rather sluggish pace, devouring each word, re-reading the bits that make me laugh, pausing over them, maybe even reading them aloud to hear the words echo outside my brain, and letting myself escape if just for snippets of time into the world Rowlings or some other author creates. I might even pause and jump back a few pages, re-read a passage to see how it relates to the one I'm one. Ponder it.

Harry Potter - for me at least - recaptures the nostalgia of my childhood, when teachers read Ronald Dahl to me or I created my own fantasy stories. Rowlings reminds me a great deal of Dahl, except she's lighter in tone, and not as cruel. She seems somehow to like people more - which is odd considering she had a tougher time of it - a welfare mom struggling, while Dahl if I remember correctly was pretty well off and had married a fairly famous film actress - Patricia O'Neal. At any rate - I like to make the experience last as long as possible. I do not want to inhale the book in two hours or twenty four hours or a weekend or two days. I WANT TO TAKE MY TIME! Soo...while it may take some people two hours to read these books, it will take me a week or more.

Reading a good book, a book you love, is no different than eating a really good meal, drinking a lovely glass of wine or for that matter listening to a great piece of music - you don't speed through it - it gives you heartburn, you don't taste it. You sip. You fall back and listen, you chew and taste each morsel. If you speed through it, you barely experience it. It has no time to resonate. If you speed up a music track it becomes white noise. The notes are lost. It's like that old Simon and Garfunkle song - slow down, you move too fast, feeling groovy...

Sometimes I feel as if the world wants to move at the speed of light. Racing each other to the finish line. And I wonder what the rush is about? Is it the rush against mortality? Time? Probably. Everyone says the same thing over and over again - I don't have any time.
Truth is you do. You make time.

I love to while away a few hours in a book. To escape for snippets. To get away from the noise in my brain and in the world. Nothing compares to it.

So why would anyone want to sped up that experience?

To read more books? Is that it? Does it really matter how many you've read? Especially if you don't remember them that well? If you haven't taken the time to savor and enjoy them? If they don't satisfy? I mean, I get speed-reading for knowledge - I do that. I can read a ten page contract in about fifteen minutes. And flist? Very quickly. But a book? A novel?
For enjoyment?

Impatience?

Don't know... only word I can think of is well, shrug.

Long ago accepted the fact that not everyone experiences the world the same way. Once you accept that I think, it's easier to shrug off things people do that you just can't wrap your mind around.

Anywho - you are hereby on notice, flist - if you spoil me - by accident or intent, I will defriend you. No excuses. Got it? Good. Because I'll be damned if I have to stay off the net and lj until I finish reading the bloody thing.

Sigh.

Who am I kidding? I'll probably get spoiled by New York 1 or the little news tv in the elevator at work. Avoiding spoilers for Harry Potter or any pop culture phenomena is akin to attempting to avoid getting wet in the streets of NYC - it rains horizontally here, you can't avoid it. Might as well just shrug your shoulders and accept it.

Hmmm..there's something to be said for not liking the same thing everyone else does. Like the book I'm reading now, for instance - the fourth in the Kim Harrison Rachel Morgan Bounty Hunter series. Fantastic read. And no fears of being spoilt on future entries.
Sure there are people who like it, but not that many and they don't really talk about it.

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Last time (for Half-Blood Prince) I bought the book at 7 am, and finished it at 3 am... Not to race through it, but because I couldn't put it down: I was way too excited. Of course I had to immediately reread it a few days later so I could enjoy the details and take my time.... But I'm afraid I can not ponder and take my time while the lives of the characters I love are at stake!

I can understand your feelings of frustration, I have a friend who will reading the ending first so she doesn't have to experience the suspense at all! She makes me crazy. LOL

Right now my big dilemma is whether to buy the book at midnight (and be tempted to read all night with no sleep) or to wait until the next morning and buy it at a more reasonable hour (I can avoid going online, watching TV, and talking to anyone who might spoil me, so that isn't part of the equation).

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

7am - 3am is understandable. That's non-stop reading and I've done that - although it's usually because I had to read the book for a class or had to return it, which may explain why I'm not fond of library books - I have a limited time to read them and I don't like pre-imposed deadlines when it comes to reading for enjoyment. (One of my friends gets around this by either paying late fees or remembering to recheck out the book.) But I've done it for books I just can't put down too. It's the two - four hour speed races I see people on the net doing that boggle my mind. They literally appear to be racing one another.

Reading the ending first isn't quite the same thing as having someone else spoil you with it. The difference is *you* read it. You saw it for yourself. And You made the choice to do it. When someone else spoils you - you see the ending through their eyes, their perspective. You never get the chance to see it through your own without having their thoughts color your judgement.

It's hard to avoid spoiling people on the net. Particularly with TV series - because you have no clue if they've seen the show or how much of it they've seen. And there are some spoilers - that I don't think of as being that big a deal and other's do. I've accidentally spoiled people on tv shows here and there and maybe a few books, not meaning to. So I get that.

I've gotten in the habit of cut-tagging movie and book reviews with spoilers. And if I don't want to do that, being as vague as I possibly can and trying not to take it personally when someone gets upset with me because I accidentally spoiled them.

HP will be tough. If something major happens - such as character death - people will be hard pressed to keep their mouths shut.

So, I probably won't defriend people. They can't help it. LOL!

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Oh I would be furious if someone spoiled me, but since I'll be the book as quickly as possible, and avoid turning on my computer again until I finish reading the book, then there really isn't that much danger of my getting spoiled (LOL).

OTOH I can assure you that I would never spoil you, last time I only discussed the book via e-mail w/other people who told me they finished it...
I avoided posting online about it for quite a while, and even then it was only behind a cut. HP is definitely one of those things I want to experienced unspoiled. Which is also how I feel about all things Joss Whedon creates, I just feel that some things deserve that 'surprise!' element that you only get that first time.

So I'm promising to no spoil you in any way shape for form... but I do hope you get ahold of the book soon after it is released because I will love to read your thoughts on it.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

I guess that's why I don't care one way or the other about book spoilers. I like long books and I like reading them slowly. I think, people in a hurry to read are most interested in knowing what happened. I'm more interested in how it happened and the details like the little jokes.

Like you, S'kat, there are times when I'll stop and re-read in the middle of something to enjoy it or make sure I got the scene set properly before getting back to heading toward the 'exciting' part.

It's a book. It isn't going anywhere. Unless you're reading it for a class there probably isn't a time limit. If you enjoy reading, not just knowing the ending, take your time.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty much the same way.

Books aren't like movies or television series - you can read them at your leisure...flip to the end, the middle, read it backwards, do whatever you want. And take it wherever you want.

I guess I'm less interested in what will happen to the people as I am in why and how. If I get worried about the what - I'll often satisfy it by skipping ahead to see - then go backwards and read about how.

[beanbeans.livejournal.com]

I promise not to spoil you, as I feel the same; I will cheerfully spork anyone who spoils me for this last HP book.

And I couldn't agree more with the rest of your post. I like to take my time, enjoy being completely immersed in the world the author created, and I'm always sad at the end of a good read, and even more so at the end of a series. I am a fast reader, but I'll certainly not finish the final HP book in two hours. Sheesh.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

LOL! Yes, I can understand taking all day to read it. But two hours??
Last year - I was laughing, one of the people on my flist, I think it was the red shoes asked : "Did 80% of my flist really just inhale an 800 page book in less than four hours? Not sure what that says about the book."

Took me at least a week - granted I only had time to read it on the subways and at home at night before bed.

Some books I don't mind being spoilt on, but HP I really do. I do not want someone telling me that so and so died or so and so did this before I can see it myself. It ruins the thrill. I want the how, what and why to come together gradually. That does not mean that I'm above spoiling myself - by jumping to the end of the book if I get bogged down in the middle, but at least I'm reading what happens for myself - not having someone else tell me what happened from their perspective before I've gotten it from my own. When you get information from someone else's perspective first - it colors how you interpret it. You'll never know how you might have read or thought about it without seeing it first through their eyes.

[spikewriter]

I'm a naturally fast reader, especially if I get sucked into a story. I swallow the words greedily, wanting more, more, more until there aren't any left. It usually takes me about 12 hours to get through a HP book the first time through, which is why I've blocked that Saturday out completely. Yes, I'll be picking the book up at midnight and will probably read the first few pages before going to bed.

I won't be popping on the internet immediately after I'm done, though; in fact, I'll probably stay away because I'll want to savor my reaction rather than have it dashed by all the noise that will be happening. And all the insanity on the net is why I usually don't post reviews -- I don't want to get sucked into all of that.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I hear you! The net can get insane at times. I'm lucky - my flist is actually rather tame when it comes to posting reviews on things. They don't seem to get as riled up. Last year they were making fun of all the hubbub regarding the Harry Potter shipping wars. But weren't that upset about it themselves. They can get critical at times, but they seem to be more scholarly about it for some reason. And I don't frequent fanboards any more.

Some people do read awfully fast. My Grandmother does. So does my father.
The rest of my family - my mother, me and my brother read slow - course we're all dyslexic so that might have something to do with it. It bugs my brother that his wife can read a book in a day when it takes him a week.
But...I will state, he usually can remember more of it. There's a reason for that. He read the book twice, she read it once. See - we compensate by re-reading sentences and paragraphs. Our eyes and mind skip ahead and then we have to track back to make sure we read it right. Skip ahead, track back. I write the same way. I will read a portion of each page twice to make sure I got it. It's hard to explain and it's not even really conscious - I don't even know I'm doing it. And I've gotten to the point that with some things, I can force myself to just re-read the important stuff and not the unimportant. That's why I can't wrap my brain around someone who doesn't read that way, I forget that most people don't re-read or double check they just read it once straight through and don't worry if they skipped or scanned a paragraph in the process.