Impeding on Reading

When I was about 10 years old I started reading a full-text copy of "Huckleberry Finn." I finished every last page of it, too.

It took me more than two years.

Reading has always been an activity I've been proud to say I enjoyed. For whatever reason, though, I can rarely focus on any single text for more than 20 minutes. I read books, literally, a couple pages at a time. This past summer, I read one book. John Steinbeck's "Cannery Row."

It's 123 pages long. My father recommended it, telling me, "You can finish it in a weekend." I knew how far that was from the truth. With my affinity for film, music and outdoor activities, I knew it would never happen.

I began reading "Cannery Row" in May of this year. I finished it just before I came back to school. There are at least a dozen ear-marks on the book's musty pages, indicating my starting and stopping points.

There are a few theories floating in my mind about why I find it so difficult to sustain interest.

One possible explanation is that I simply lack the attention span to enjoy literature. Maybe growing up on comic books left me with intolerance for any story that requires more then 30 pages to be told.

This seems unlikely, because one would assume - by this logic - that since I grew up enjoying cartoons, I could not sit through a long movie. That's not the case.

I rather enjoyed "Gods and Generals."

It is more likely that I've simply not found an author that truly fits my mentality, my personality. After all, it took me quite a few years of intent listening to find musical artists that fit me as a person; artists with whom I could whole-heartedly identify. So, there must be authors that can verbalize my sentiments in much the same way. Having not found them, reading is not my favorite source of enlightenment and relaxation; entertainment.

I know how good reading is for my vocabulary and grammar, which, as a writer, are crucial to me. However, I can rarely incorporate reading into my daily life.

The closest I've come in recent years was directly after my arrival to UB this year. I began reading Hemingway's "To Have and Have Not." Hemingway was one of my favorite authors in high school. When "A Farewell to Arms" was assigned my junior year, I was blown away by his ability to dictate feelings of intense love and romance without being sappy in the least. His implementation of a dual meaning in the title-as it was as story of both a farewell to his love's embrace and to the war-simply blew me away.

I was able to read the first 120 pages of "To Have and Have Not" within a couple of weeks (an incredible pace for me). The reason?

My portable CD player was broken, and I had 40 minutes to ride the bus between North and South Campuses three times a week. I got a new Sony Discman, complete with an MP3 player, in the middle of September.

Hemingway sits on my bookshelf, and there's a distinct possibility it will never be finished.