A big difference between my pre & post HIV self is focus. Before HIV, I was an avid reader. I went through books at a fairly serious rate. That changed with HIV. I'm not sure how many others get this but I did. At 1st, I was just too exhausted to focus on anything besides not falling out off the couch. But even after being on my meds for years, I could hardly read anything longer long a comic. My mind would just skip away from it & give me a dull ache.
I hated this. Reading & music were my childhood saviors & throughout most of my life. Now, sometimes even listening to music can be too much. Too much buzzing, too much nostalgia, too much emotion, loss or something. I'm finally getting past that with music these last couple of years. But, it still gets to me sometimes.
Several months back I read a list of the best fiction of 2015. I scanned the article & found some that seemed interesting. I've tried to go back to some of my old, standby authors of the past, but they held no interest for me now. That really sucked to let go of them. Maybe someday I'll get back to them.
I got e-book copies of these highly reviewed new works. But, I didn't read them. They waited for months, before I looked seriously at any of them. Finally, I did. It was getting promoted everywhere. It had serious hype. It was even headed to television. What I saw on TV was fair enough. In my past experience, books had always outshone film versions. I decided to read this book, actually by this time it was a series.
It was praised, produced & pushed. Most of all it was fairly short. I had no previous attachments to the author. I went in hopeful. I was actually going to read again & I did.
I managed to push myself through the 400+ page book in about a week. That wouldn't of lasted a couple of days in my reading prime & possibly as little as a few hours if the piece was really good. I plodded through the work. I made it to the end & now I'm just sort of pissed.
After forcing myself to read something, specifically this praised piece, it seriously just sucked. I won't go into the author or work's name. I'm not here to trash art or fiction. I can't blame the writer for me not liking his work. I can harp on his bad writing & refusal to use proper punctuation. I can blame his editor for not screaming about his lack of commas. I can blame the market people for calling this work adult when it definitely belonged in young adult with all the other mopey, dopey, some teenager saves the world crap. I guess the alcohol & sex moved the young characters across the aisle into the adult land.
I blame myself for buying his praise & when I looked closer only about half the people really loved his work. Most of the others really hated it. This isn't on him, it's on me. I contracted HIV & lost my passion for reading. I fell out of trend & knowledge of the current writing scene. I'm done with lists of the best what-evers. I read 1 over the best horror films of 2015 from a an online blog, I09, Gawker or some such thing. I know, consider the source. Between my roomie & me, we've seen them. They were OK at best & most of them were outright awful. Screw the best lists.
But, I did it. I read my 1st full book in over a decade. I dipped my toe back into fiction. Too bad the water I choose was a murky, childish sty. Still, even though the book was awful, I won. I met my goal. Maybe that's my goal for 2016. Maybe, I can try to get back into reading, even if it does still sort of give me a headache & it's still hard to focus. I'll put this in the win column.
Cya...
PS: ...ygolirT snaicigaM s'namssorG veL diovA
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