How Many Pages?!
Good morning, good day and good afternoon, I hope everybody had a happy Halloween. I'm still on a sugar high! Way too much candy. Let me finish the whole Halloween thing with an interesting little tid bit I came across. Maybe you dear reader already knew this but I didn't. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary the mare in nightmare is not a horsey. Mare is an old word for an evil spirit that haunts sleep. The little devil in me likes that, but the little girl in me likes horsey better. That's the problem with dual personalities,or triple personalities or quadruple personalities or however many personalities you have lurking inside of you,they always seem to be at odds with each other.
On another note, I've been reading reviews on The Luminaries. It doesn't take long before the reviewer mentions the book's length - 832 pages. Eleanor Catton in a master of the English language. Some reviewers have quoted their favorite paragraphs, and oh my, I wish I could write like that. However, I don't think I'll be reading the book. A New Zealand mining town in the eighteen hundreds doesn't appeal me.
The fact that The Luminaries is so long does intregue me and as I've said it is one of the talking points. I have three books in mind of equal length and longer. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth is one thousand, four hundred and seveny-four pages long. That's right 1474 pages. But, it is 1474 pages of enjoyment. I loved the book from beginning to end. There wasn't one part of it I wished the author had eliminated. Yes it was long, but I enjoyed every sentence, every paragragh and every page.
I read A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford this summer. It's a door stopper at nine hundred and one pages. Did I enjoy it? Sure, it was a good summer read. Did I go ohmygod when I realized it was 901 pages long? No. Did I enjoy it enough to read it again? No, not even if it was whittled down to four hundred pages. It was a good one time read and that was all.
War and Peace, I've read it three times. Yes, beginning to end without skipping bits here and there. I would have gladly skipped the bits on Freemasonry, I found it totally boring, but I was determined to read the whole twelve hundred plus pages without fudging. Why did I read it three times. Big confession here: the scond and third time I did skip the Freemasonry parts but I gobbled the rest of the book up because I loved it and I'll probably read it again, minus the Freemasonry bits.
The thing is, it's not the page count that matters it's the story between the covers that matters. If the story holds you what difference does it make what the page count is? But if your mind is drifting by page two, the book can be ten pages long but seem like two thousand. Two thousand pages that you wished to god the author had cut down to two hundred and the only reason you're reading it is because you put out x amount of dollars on the damned thing and you're determined to read it just because you did spend all that money on it.
I remember reading Puss in Boots when I was a little girl and being totally engrossed by it. I hung on to every word and devoured all five pages as eagerly as a puppy devouring a slipper. I hugged the book when I was finished. Don't you love it when you've enjoyed a book that much.
Congratulations to Miss Catton on her Booker nomination.
On another note, I've been reading reviews on The Luminaries. It doesn't take long before the reviewer mentions the book's length - 832 pages. Eleanor Catton in a master of the English language. Some reviewers have quoted their favorite paragraphs, and oh my, I wish I could write like that. However, I don't think I'll be reading the book. A New Zealand mining town in the eighteen hundreds doesn't appeal me.
The fact that The Luminaries is so long does intregue me and as I've said it is one of the talking points. I have three books in mind of equal length and longer. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth is one thousand, four hundred and seveny-four pages long. That's right 1474 pages. But, it is 1474 pages of enjoyment. I loved the book from beginning to end. There wasn't one part of it I wished the author had eliminated. Yes it was long, but I enjoyed every sentence, every paragragh and every page.
I read A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford this summer. It's a door stopper at nine hundred and one pages. Did I enjoy it? Sure, it was a good summer read. Did I go ohmygod when I realized it was 901 pages long? No. Did I enjoy it enough to read it again? No, not even if it was whittled down to four hundred pages. It was a good one time read and that was all.
War and Peace, I've read it three times. Yes, beginning to end without skipping bits here and there. I would have gladly skipped the bits on Freemasonry, I found it totally boring, but I was determined to read the whole twelve hundred plus pages without fudging. Why did I read it three times. Big confession here: the scond and third time I did skip the Freemasonry parts but I gobbled the rest of the book up because I loved it and I'll probably read it again, minus the Freemasonry bits.
The thing is, it's not the page count that matters it's the story between the covers that matters. If the story holds you what difference does it make what the page count is? But if your mind is drifting by page two, the book can be ten pages long but seem like two thousand. Two thousand pages that you wished to god the author had cut down to two hundred and the only reason you're reading it is because you put out x amount of dollars on the damned thing and you're determined to read it just because you did spend all that money on it.
I remember reading Puss in Boots when I was a little girl and being totally engrossed by it. I hung on to every word and devoured all five pages as eagerly as a puppy devouring a slipper. I hugged the book when I was finished. Don't you love it when you've enjoyed a book that much.
Congratulations to Miss Catton on her Booker nomination.
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