Scandal

I like seeing things through to the finish. That's natural, to be sure. It is sure, isn't it? My intentions are always to go until the end, and it does hurt when I can't manage it. The other day, I had to leave one engagement early so that I could make another. I worried about the first for some time, fearing that it would suffer for my absence. I also hate it when I must give up on a food item which I've decided is foul, and it's most unpleasant when circumstances conspire to prevent me from finishing a movie, though that happens.

What doesn't happen, or at least what happens so seldom as to be statistically non-existent is my failing to finish reading a book. The second to last one was some two or three years ago. It was a science fiction novel which had been highly recommended by the newspaper or some such thing. I was brash and arrogant enough to be sure I would finish it in spite of its great length and my unfamiliarity with the author. Tragically, I returned it unfinished.

Since that book, I have read a whole lot of books, reading each one cover to cover, though some took as long as nine weeks. Those ones were rather long. I had believed that my failure was behind me and that with such momentum there was no book I could not finish, length and density be damned. Some books were tough, but I got through them and got something out of them. Then there came the one that was a challenge. Having read 'For Whom The Bell Tolls', my interest in the Spanish Civil war was reignited.

Remembering a classic tome said to be the gold standard on the subject, I sought it out and got going. It was a tough slog, but I was enthusiastic and committed. As the chapters wore on, the details piled up and the outbreak of civil war grew no closer, I began to slow. Just as war did flare up, I was near twenty chapters in and all out of interest. It saddens me to say so, but I quit. I went back to the Hemingway well and knocked out 'A Farewell To Arms', and now turn my attention to a Studs Terkel title. Here's hoping my latest failure fades into distant obscurity as quickly as did its predecessor.