Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Obsessed...

I'm obsessed. Addicted. I can't help myself. Despite having a series of posts scheduled out, some of which I was excited to write, I haven't posted anything to Green Monster in almost two weeks. And I don't even have a good reason like being too busy with work, or family obligations. Nope. I've spent virtually all of my free time since my last post doing one thing - reading.

I'll be the first to admit that once I pick up a new series it tends to occupy my attention until I've read everything I can get my hands on. It happened with the Lord of the Rings trilogy when I was in my teens, and most recently with Anne McCaffrey's Pern series. But usually I'm able to go at a normal pace and string a series out over a period of time (with LOTR for example I've slowly been reading through Chris Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series for well over a decade now). I've never felt a series almost literally take over my life to the point where I rush home from work so that I can pick up where I left off at 1 or 2 o'clock the previous morning (and then only because my wife dragged me to bed knowing I'd never get up otherwise). Man, I can't believe how pathetic I sound.

My patheticness will only sound worse when I share what it is I've become so obsessed with. My reading preferences tend towards the Fantasy end of the spectrum. I do stray out and occasionally read other genres (I loved Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth for example) in between my forays into magical worlds of mythic creatures and daring adventure. But there are a number of genres that I've stayed away from because they just don't appeal to me - mysteries and romance being the two heavies. So when my sister-in-law and mother-in-law started raving about this pseudo-romance/fantasy series they'd been reading (finished in my sister-in-law's case) I shrugged them off, thinking I'd never be interested. But my sister-in-law kept on me and I finally gave in and took the first book home with me. Literally a day and a half later I'd finished Twilight and was back on my sister-in-law's doorstep begging her for the second book.

Yes, you read that right. I said Twilight. As in the young adult book that was written with a primarily female audience in mind; as in vampire falls in love with teenage girl and much angst ensues; as in the movie that came out this past November. I am obsessed with that Twilight. And I can tell you exactly why that is - her characters. More than any other literary characters that I can think of, these characters, Bella and Edward, have burrowed their way into me. I empathize with them, I feel with them, I care about them. It's a bizzare feeling to be honest. And because I want to know how it all turns out for them (actually I'm pretty sure I know how it's going to turn out for them, its not Stephanie Meyer's writing prowess that has me obsessed), I cannot stop reading. In less than two weeks, I have literally read over 1800 pages. I've certainly read more (I like to read Tad Williams after all - the three books in the Memory, Sorrow, Thorn series clocks in at over 2400 pages), but never at this kind of pace.

So for those who were wondering where I've been for the last two weeks, I've been in Forks, Washington with Bella and Edward. I'll be back soon, I promise - I'm already a third of the way through the last book and at the rate I'm going, I'll be done before the weekend. I just hope that the withdrawl won't be too bad.

3 comments:

Linsane Mom said...

Your post made me laugh! I'm a happily married, working professional with an MBA...and after reading Twilight I because so entranced with the story that I started blogging about it too to deal with my TwiCrack *withdrawal*. :)

juliangreenfield said...

Your posts are fun to read! I feel the same about Twilight!

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margaretbechly said...

This is worth a laugh. Are you present anywhere else on the internet?

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