A story chameleon
Posted on | May 29, 2010 | 17 Comments
I slip among the cushions on the couch with a book and the edges of everything else grows blurry. Reality becomes the story on the page. I am no longer here, even as outside things are moist and green, and the lawn mower thrums loudly as T. cuts back and forth across the grass. In the air beyond the feeder with it’s shiny red metal flowers, hummingbirds zigzag, lilt, swoop, defying gravity. I look up intermittently and the clock’s hands make no more sense than reading words in Japanese. Hours slide by. I don’t move. This is what happens when I slip into a book. I have no moderation, no ability to read a page, then leave off.
It’s such a crush: this thing I have for words.
Story captures me so entirely it almost becomes a full body experience. I dislocate. My feet grow cold from staying in in one position so long, knees up on the couch by the window as the morning slides towards afternoon.
When I read I become unavailable, altered, distant. T. can ask me a question and I’ll look up moments later having absolutely no idea what he said. I am a story chameleon, becoming blue, or thrilled, or besotted with wanderlust at the story’s slightest suggestion.
I am almost unbearably suggestible when I read. Hardly a skeptic. I go to books to be altered. If the sentences are good, I’m a believer.
I just finished Breath by Tim Winton, and god, I love his stories. Raw, intimate, wild. Read the whole book in one sitting.
What are you like when you read? Also, what’s the most recent book you haven’t been able to put down?
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17 Responses to “A story chameleon”
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I am Christina Rosalie
Hello. I'm so happy you've stopped by!
I am a multimedia storyteller, digital strategist, idea starter, stalker of wonder, finder of four leaf clovers, MFA graduate student, and mama of boys. My first book,
will be published by SKIRT! Books in September, 2012.
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May 29th, 2010 @ 4:40 pm
I am exactly the same. It is probably why I don’t read more books than I do, because big chunks of time (or days) don’t come often. This is the reason I need to be in a book club. It gives me an excuse to sit down and ignore everything and everyone. I have to get the book read by the deadline, right? My most recent crush is The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. It took me three times to get into it, and once I knew I needed to get to page 100, then I could get to that place where I was not here, but there. I put Breath on my always growing “to be read” list. If I ever have to stay in bed for a month, I am set. Do you mind if I use this essay in my class this fall? It is such a great description of how you feel when you are in a book.
May 29th, 2010 @ 4:43 pm
wow. you have an incredible way with your crush (words). first time to your blog and i am hooked. i plan to spend an upcoming afternoon perusing previous posts and the links to my right.
to answer your question: i like to read as diversely as possible, and i too read to be altered. here is my summer reading list: http://otherwisedelightful.blogspot.com/2010/05/more-words-than-i-have-ever-heard-and-i.html
May 29th, 2010 @ 5:39 pm
oh this is a beautiful post. i am exactly like you when i read. i love it. i become the book. i live it.
the author that i’ve been reading is anita shreve… but i think i already told you all about her writings
right now i’m reading luanne rice, the deep blue sea for beginners. it’s set on an island in the isle of capri. so really beautiful, fantasy setting.
it’s my vacation
May 29th, 2010 @ 5:42 pm
reading is what saved me from a childhood that i didn’t always want to remember. it’s why i mostly read fiction – i need to be in another story, to be taken away. there’s nothing i like more than a good novel – one that i take to my bed early so i can read instead of watch tv or spend time online.
i just finished a book i couldn’t put down:
‘let the great world spin’ by colum mccann and now i’m reading ‘under the banner of heaven’ because i’m thoroughly fascinated by mormons and i love his way of narrating non-fiction like a good story.
May 29th, 2010 @ 6:53 pm
I love your description of getting caught in a book. I am the same way, and I read voraciously (note I don’t have kids yet!)
This Saturday morning, with Ian away on a work trip and a long weekend day with just a vague list of errands to complete, I stayed in bed with my book and my cat until 10 (that’s over 3 hours after my normal wake up time – luxurious!) and finished by most recent obscure non-fiction book – “My Life with the California Gypsies” – about an anthropologist studying Serbian gypsy immigrants to California and her identify crises as she moves slowly from a researcher and observer role to a true friend and confidant of the Bay Area gypsies.
When I complete a book after becoming so enmeshed in the story I miss the characters as if they were real friends. However tonight’s new book John Muir’s autobiography is going to be a treat! Can’t wait to make friends with John Muir
May 29th, 2010 @ 8:16 pm
I spent most of today, a lovely rainy day, curled up with a romance novel. Like you, I get totally absorbed when I read, and I read for hours if I can. Today was an escape day, so a simple romance novel it was. Nothing I’d recommend, though.
May 29th, 2010 @ 8:47 pm
You’ve captured my experience with books perfectly. Like Kristen, I lost myself in books so I wouldn’t loose myself in my childhood. When things go wrong now I turn to books. I just read Stoner by John Williams and was so moved that it became a blog post.
May 29th, 2010 @ 9:03 pm
i can totally relate! oh how i love books!
so glad i’m not the only one who feels this way…xo
May 30th, 2010 @ 12:16 am
Beautifully said. I do love books too.
May 30th, 2010 @ 2:20 am
I become a slave to my books, staying up all hours devouring their words. Lately, it was The Help. And before that The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.
Definitely I am transported to that place between here and there and it is difficult to come back. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to have a story end.
May 30th, 2010 @ 4:11 am
I love Tim Winton.
I picked up Thoreau the other days for the first time in maybe fifteen years, and I can’t put it down. He could have been writing yesterday.
May 30th, 2010 @ 4:28 am
There’s nothing like book absorption: getting carried away into another world, another perspective, another mind. It’s a wonderful feeling. I’m like you. My family has to call my name several times when I’m deep in a book. I’ve been comfort reading old fantasy favorites for quite some time this year. LOVE Robin Hobb.
May 30th, 2010 @ 11:37 am
Ugh. I feel jealous-like I’m missing out. I used to read voraciously as a child, getting lost and carried away as you described. In college, then in massage school, then starting a business, then reading for other studies I started reading more textbook-y stuff, which slowed my pace so much. I felt it was “important” to read every word. Eventually with a job, a business, a husband & teenage stepsons I got the pleasure of reading one novel a year on vacation. Now with the teenagers grown & gone replaced by a 2 year old & a 4 1/2 year old, a part-time job & a few more years on me I don’t read anything “non-essential.” Right now it’s all child-rearing issues, scriptural stuff & stuff related to my job–general massage stuff as well as info regarding craniosacral therapy for kids with sensory disorders. I listen to unabridged audiobooks which I LOVE. The Help is next. That’s it for me. But when I am able to make art-y things I get totally lost. A rare but wonderful shift.
May 30th, 2010 @ 12:39 pm
Christina, you’ve put into words exactly the experience of reading. Awesome!
Right now I’m going to get off the computer, grab a novel from my “to be read” armoire and find a cozy chair to curl up in.
Thank you for reminding me what I NEED to do!
May 31st, 2010 @ 3:43 pm
I am the same way! It’s really the only way to read, I think.
June 4th, 2010 @ 11:56 am
I haven’t read Breath yet, but The Turning is one of my favorite collections. I love his writing.
June 5th, 2010 @ 11:53 am
I love stopping by here and am inclined to comment as I have loved books all of my life, they are a necessary part of life for me! I have just finished Loving Frank, Breath, and now The Time Traveler’s Wife. ( all worthy of reading! )
Breath was very Jack London-esque and I too read it in one sitting. It also made me think of a favorite from a writer’s standpoint, Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden. Not to be missed.
My (very) short list of fav.s : The Three Junes by Julia Glass, Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, Death Comes for The Arch Bishop by Willa Cather, A Fine Balance by Rowan Mistry, Continental Drift by Russell Banks – more true today than ever!
and last but not least The Power of One – as a mother of boys you will so love this!
On my list for summer is The Help so far….. oh books!