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As a child, I was so fond of reading what I saw as beautiful. Even when above [lacking] the understanding.
The perception of beauty came mainly from the cover and the fonts used ( same today ) or from the place the book occupied on my father’s shelf.
One of them was Tuareg. More than once I took this classic from the home library, only to glance at the first page with no interest. It was only decades later — some years ago — that I saw the title again, and read with pleasure and no difficulties. It’s not a hard read, even to a 12 year-old, probably only the argument, the plot, didn’t catch me by then.
Anyway, I was attracted to the book, as if simply wanting to read it made me part of the classic, the intellectual.
I have less of this today. [I mean,] Not the inability to read a lot of books, but the urge to be a consumer of certain cultural product. Maybe due to not greeding to build a personal image, content without exposition.
Still, sometimes, wanting to consume a piece of media and being unable to.. I wanted a story of robots, the book I though was not available [(All Systems Red)], so I bought one of scientific fiction.
Somehow it attracted me when I flipped the few pages of Planet of Exile at the bookstore, an item that could lead me to a travel outside of this place, an escape. At home, I immediately saw I couldn’t grasp it. There were too many characters (too many = more than two in the first page, specially when another atmosphere is the location, a new physics to grasp). Too much information, can’t retain the minimum necessary in the way to the second, third… fifth page, by when more is being presented. This was always a disability of mine, focused on a little tiny thing, intensely, for some time, all lost in some weeks or months. I know it happens to me , because people are able to remember the names of the cars of the movie Cars. Not an incredible feat for them (maybe they haven’t paid attention, nor actively tried to remember, only did), and something strange to me.
It was decided to register this because when I saw myself unable to read the [Ursula] Le Guin’s book, I got nervous. I’ve already been forgetting more ultimately, take confused steps, and now I can’t center on a book?! What’s happening?
But then I took a breath: much can be going way too wrong from current circumstances outside and inside, but your limited comprehension of the world (and its art) is very part of you. This trace, or frailty, of your character, is not your brain rotting, it’s part of what you have been since always.
Thank you.