Choosing a Book is Like Choosing a Lover - Prelim

The title is the conclusion I have come to. I am having issues choosing what book to read next. While staring at my bookshelf, longingly scanning over their titles and their attractive facades. I have an idea of what most of them contain. I know what they could offer, the level of commitment they will require, the experiences and knowledge they might share.

However, I cannot choose. Because I cannot commit. War and Peace is staring at me. It is saying I offer love of the highest grade, love you have often thought of, love in a epic fashion. Your life will be richer with me in it. War and Peace is right of course, but it will also take time. It will take effort. It will take some degree of exclusivity and investment. I am not sure I am ready for that. And we know if you start a relationship we are not ready for it is harder to pick it back up later. We must see it through to the end and offer the commitment required to do just that.

So, I read a book I know I can finish quickly and enjoy it for the weekend - in the most recent case Wonder Boys (review coming). Then I move on and stare again at my shelf and all the books waiting to be read. Like un-examined lives, paths that might be taken, people who we might meet. It all terrifies me. How does on commit wholly to an endeavor knowing it will end and pursuing that end for some form of resolution when they know the end will be the end of that world.

One of my Professors says he no longer reads Bleak House, but he lives in that book. At this point it has become so much a part of his life. It holds the position of an exalted lover. Sure they are not exclusive, no love should be, but there is a commitment there.

I have often said I want to find a book I can live in, a story that I can inhabit, but I am afraid what will happen when I do. There are so many books out there screaming for attention screaming about the possibilities that they might hold. Who knows if War and Peace will do for me what In Search of Lost Time or Ulysses can do?

Like the rest of my life I am faced with an impasse of thought. A realization that the postmodern condition, the lack of ability to say anything with certainty, makes me uncertain, indecisive, and fearful of being unjustly labeled by my choice of a companion.

The book I want right now does not exist. The one that requires little attention, hardly any focus, and offers unlimited rewards. Like a love affair this cannot exist because it would not be fair. Reading is not a hard activity, but it is an activity that requires time and rewards commitment.

So, I guess that means the question I need to answer is.... What am I willing to share my life with?