I Skipped to the End

There are two kinds of people in this world. The first kind begins reading a book, but if he doesn't enjoy or appreciate the authorship, puts it down and goes to another book. The second kind begins reading a book and, no matter how bad the writing, reads every word to the end. For most of the life I remember, I have been the second type of reader. I have become aware of this through some anguish, because I have read some very bad books. Yet when I open the cover and start reading, I feel as if I've committed to something. If the first chapter is bad (and I can identify bad writing now with some speed), I hold out hope that the second chapter will be different. If the second chapter is bad, I try to imagine some exciting nugget of fact or plot that might emerge later, making the slogging worthwhile. If I get near the end and it's all been bad, I pretend that maybe the last chapter will redeem the whole book and I'll be vindicated in my commitment. This process, by the way, requires more work than anyone should put into a book written in one's own generation. So I am slowly becoming the first type of reader. I am discovering that no one will question my lack of commitment if I don't finish a book. I am discovering that if the first chapter is bad, very rarely is the second chapter good. I am learning that really dull books do not hide exciting nuggets somewhere near the epilogue. I find that the last chapter never redeems a book. Completes it, yes; gives it all meaning, yes; brings it all together, yes; redeems it, no. And I am discovering that if the editor did not do her work on the first part, the rest of the book will only get worse. Last month I read Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends, by Lonnie R. Johnson. (All right, "read" may not be the right verb; I'll let you decide.) The title piqued my interest because of our three months in Central Europe five years ago. And I like history. Early on in the book I realized that Mr. Johnson had command of massive amounts of data, was capable of brilliant historical analysis, and passionately loved the complexity of Central European history. I also learned, by about the third chapter, that he had an aversion to short sentences, loved adversative dependent clauses, and had a chip on his shoulder about how people use and interpret history. In the fourth chapter, I started to hope that the next chapter would be better. I started to hope (against hope) that certainly the editor, in the next section, would have woken up and begun crossing out large chunks of text. By the sixth chapter, I realized that wasn't going to happen. So I skipped to the end. That's right: I let go my fears of missing something, losing some important detail, lacking some all-important fact from history. I went to the epilogue and discovered . . . more of the same. This part was slightly more interesting, because now Johnson wrote about events from my lifetime. But the phrases still made my head ache, and the venom for errant interpreters still stung, but like an annoying ache rather than a startling pinch. I'm glad I skipped to the end. Reading only the epilogue gave me a sense of satisfaction and freedom that would have drowned in the fatigue of slogging through the whole. This kind of reading definitely has its uses. Oh, did I say I "read" the epilogue? I really just sort of skimmed it. ~ emrys