Outdoor Reading

As one who desires to read all material around him, one who wishes to own a suitable book collection, one who wants to rhyme authors and titles of by heart, you would think that running to park areas to read would be a constant activity in my life.

Yet it's only twice I've ran to a park to do so. Once in May 2008 when I had a copy of Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass to finish. It was the third time I had gone through it and the first time I properly absorbed it.

My second time in a park was today. Along with Genevieve, we sat on a grassy area that no one else in Leicester seemed to know about. I had Bertolt Brecht and Charles Baudelaire. Both of them translations. Like novels, translations feel a lot more appealing to the 'intellect vibe' readers wish to harness. Maybe the notion of words in a different language will make the subject matter more exciting. A translation supposedly transports this lyrical or aesthetic way of writing to our own language so that we can all admire the work. This probably works doubly so with poetry.

Onward with my point. Normally I'd be reading a novel. Only this week I finished Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair. Being somewhat a Terry Pratchett fan, I thought this would be perfect. It's much better than most of the Pratchett copy-cats. In fact if anything, it's wonderful. Funny, fast, inventive, colourful...even the cover matched the clothing and Pepsi tins I drink. Maybe my only problem was that I was writing two essays for the past two weeks and I haven't read Jane Eyre. Some jokes may have been lost on me.

Any other time I've been telling myself to sit up in bed, sit on a steady seat in the kitchen, run to the library and all manner of places and ways of sitting to get through monster novels. I've not tried doing it on my head yet.

Today I read poetry. Originally I was going to spend some time writing poetry, but it's difficult. The pleasure of it for me seems to be in the reading. And the darker, the better. For being a Marilyn Manson fan, I imagine him singing it (in his late 90's voice, not his current voice) with heavy metal music in the background. If not him, Ville Valo. It is my belief that Edgar Allen Poe realised how powerful a force love is and is now channelling this through Valo.

For the short time I'm left in Leicester, this somewhat private area should be consulted for reading the three novels I've got to get through. With no classes, no essays and no money, this reading activity may become the main source of entertainment. When you consider for the majority of the past three years, it's been the main source of research, influence and late nights.

So around us were a couple of squirrels we tried to entice, a sun beating pleasurably on our backs, an All-American Boy with straight white teeth who I drooled over (before remembering the pretty ones are the worst) and someone else reading a huge book. I tried to decipher it.

When I passed him, the book didn't have a dust cover. It did have illustrations inside which I saw from a distance.

"He's reading Sherlock Holmes," I said, recognising the black and white copies of the original etchings. There was a small spark of pride in me, knowing I spend a lot of time with books.

Not enough time however.