Thinks on it a bit, reckons ultimately, “Don’t know.”

Incidentally, the first suitor able to ape successfully Henry’s voice saying, “Oh Punky” will have me as his slave. Forever.

And now.

Pam quotes emails about books as a means of using her powers for good. I’m whatever the opposite of that is. I said I was done with the topic. But it doesn’t mean the rest of y’all are.

Alyssa says:

I felt compelled to share with you – weird, I know – but I have the same problem with Life of Pi. I’ll be honest. I’ve stopped reading it. And I’m really patient. I’ve read some really boring books just because I felt like I should finish them. I paid good money for them, why not get to the end?

Good question.

Julia says:

I feel your pain. I truly do. I don’t think Life of Pi is actually a book, but rather a secret mind control project by the Canadian government to colonize the United States by lulling those of us intelligent enough to pose a threat (aka, reading at at least a 6th grade level) into a stupor as we attempt to finish the damn book. Blame Canada, that’s what I say.

I had the book for a book group. I also had a friend pestering me on a daily (hourly) basis to finish the damn thing because she saw God in the book, and wanted to talk me about it. God or the book, I don’t know which. All I was getting from the book was a traveling coaster for my drink (work, home, the car, the manicure place…) an insult to my claims of being a reader and a serious risk to my sanity. I couldn’t just drop it, that would be admitting defeat to the book. Life of Pi and Canada would win. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to conquer it. It was my Everest.

Yet the book was sapping my will to live. My co-workers wondered why I was yelling to a Richard Parker to just eat Pi now, for chrissakes! Get it over with finally. And Meerkats. What the hell is the deal with Meerkats?? (If you haven’t got there yet, there’s Meerkats. Lots of them. Timon’s cousins have a colony in the middle of the Pacific) I wondered if it was all worth it, if a single stupid book could make or break a person. And I wondered again why I was putting myself through all this. Finally, in desperation, I stumbled upon an answer, a lifeline, so to speak, that got me over the hump and to the end. It’s so simple I wondered why I didn’t of it before. Be careful with this knowledge, it may save your life. Are you ready? Here it is:

Read every other paragraph.

Really, you don’t miss much, and it is a much more interesting book this way. Also, it significantly decreases the time with the Algae (if you haven’t gotten there yet, guess what, there’s algae. A lot of it). And, ultimately I found in the book group that I didn’t lose anything and could still make coherent points (tiger, gaffs, hyena, meerkats, religion, yadda, yadda, whatever). I didn’t see God, and told my friend that she was nuts in a very loving way. But I did finish the book. And I am still blaming Canada for it.

Brilliant advice, but it only solved 50% of my problem.

Ericka says:

I’m glad you don’t love Life of Pi. I thought I was alone in this world.

I guess I really AM bringing the world together.

In other news, am FINALLY reading: Running with Scissors, because it’s Pamie’s and she needs it back before mailing books ain’t free anymore. I’m only thirty pages in, but thus far I’m choosing to proclaim it as the second most electrifying book with the cover featuring a head-obscuring instrument to show up on a Bay Area bestseller list.