I was a voracious reader of books when I was younger, but found that by my mid-20's I had interests that, for one reason or another, meant that sitting down and reading books for pleasure dropped off the radar completely. Then a family came along, and I honestly didn't think I'd ever really get back to that simple pleasure of sitting down with some really good books and just having, but also giving myself the time and space to enjoy them....
Thankfully, lockdown changed all that - no more excuses - and one of the best things about the past torrid months has been enjoying the writings of an author that I've wanted to try out for many, many years..
I've been a big fan of Cormac McCarthy for a long time, even before I read a single word he'd wrote, as both his 'No Country for Old Men' and 'The Road' have been firm film-favourites for years now, and I knew that one day I wanted to not just watch film-adaptations of his works, but to read the books themselves, and others by him. Some authors we stumble on - others we're drawn to, and Cormac McCarthy was definitely someone who pulled me in over a long period...
So I'm about half-way through one of his most famous novels - Blood Meridian - and I'm loving it so much, and loving reading it so much, that I wanted to say just how much I'm enjoying the whole experience. I'm taking it all very slowly, but for good reasons, I think.
I'm really enjoying making the time to sit down and read again on it's own - I'm picking my moments, and making sure to have proper, uninterrupted time to myself, but I'm also taking my time because McCarthy's writing is just so damned good that I really do want to give it the time and space it deserves in making it's way off the page and into my head. After such a long time out from reading, I initially thought I'd bitten off more than I could chew when it came to his absolutely stunning descriptive prose, but having persevered for a while, I'm now finding myself getting into that head-space that I fondly recognise from my youth, where the characters, settings, and stories are lingering in my head well outside the reading period itself, and that's come as a really pleasant surprise to be honest, because I'd actually forgotten how nice that part of enjoying books can be - it's not just the time enjoyed with the book in your hands, but also the extra-curricular life these stories take on during our otherwise busy lives as well, as we continue to savour the echoes of the stories in our everyday imaginations...
So that's my 'lockdown reading' story - a welcome return to books hopefully, and whilst I really should have made more of an effort in the past, I'm glad to be able to look upon this wretched time that we've gone through and find the odd chink of light, which ironically enough, is more than can be said for any of the characters in Blood Meridian, the poor, wretched buggers....
'They rode on. They rode like men invested with a purpose whose origins were antecedent to them, like blood legatees of an order both imperative and remote. For although each man among them was discrete unto himself, conjoined they made a thing that had not been before and in that communal soul were wastes hardly reckonable more than those whited regions on old maps where monsters do live and where there is nothing other of the known world save conjectural winds.' - Blood Meridian
Cheers,
Itsallaguess
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Lockdown reading - a fabulous return to books....
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- Lemon Half
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