Well, as I was reading this stroy, I found myself thinking, "Wow, this would make an interesting movie." The book itself has the interesting parts about the fair, and then it has the added suspense of Holmes and his killing. When one thinks about it, it would make sense to make a movie about this book. I mean, they have been making a lot of books into movies lately.
And then I slowly became frustrated. I fell into the stereotypical position of a kid, wanting this interesting book to become a movie, a book office hit even. People are so busy in life nowadays that they don't have time to sit down an read a book. I myself have had a hard time trying to fit reading this book into my busy schedule, what with work, school, and the general feeling of laziness that hits me every now and then. Is a book not a strong enough source to draw people away from their lives? Or could it be the fact that the no one has time to sit down and read a book on purpose, trying to squeeze in reading between other tasks.
Just the other day, while waiting for this class to begin, I was sitting outside the room, reading this book because it was the only time I had where I wasn't doing anything else. I opened the book, read a few pages, and then realized I had work to do for another class, so my reading time took a hit because I had to do the other work. It's disappointing really, but what am I to do? As Burnham is building up the World's Fair and Holmes is killing women, I am forced to put their stories aside so I can read for my survey of American Lit class, which I might add, is not paticularly interesting. I am slowly chipping away at the story, but I should not have to read a book that I find interesting in bits and pieces. I mean, you don't watch ten minutes of a movie, stop it, and then watch ten more minutes a few hours later. If that was the case, the movie industry wouldn't be as big as it was, because no one would want to see it in short clips, especially if nothing interesting is happening in that short clip to begin with. In a society that is so fast paced, what with people needing to be everywhere at every minute, does a book stand a chance, or are people just too busy to give a book a second glance. Only time will tell I suppose.
Amen brother - I wrote a similar blog entry called "Time, there is never enough of it".
ReplyDeleteI am struggling with the same issues you are. I still am - hence why I blogged four times and am now depserately trying to catch up on commenting (yea I have no idea how far behind I am on that one - just accepting it at this point).
I hate how sometimes the two compound each other - the slow passage of time in the novel matches the infrequency of opportunity to read, and the two combined just make it feel like forever.
I really enjoyed the internal rhyme in your second to last sentence, by the way. And I think that books will always exist - having the pages in an electronic document does not mean it is easier to get through - just a bit simpler to carry. But I don't really think that was your point. Still, I don't see books going extinct.