I had a DNF this month.1 While I have no problems putting down a book that I’m not into, it doesn’t happen often. I know what I’m interested in and I get recommendations from people who rarely let me down. However, I will DNF a book. It’s essential to my reading practice.
Sometime, maybe two years ago, I read The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. It’s a dystopian novel, which despite my recent adventure with 1984, is not my favorite sort of novel.2 However, Butler is a stunning writer.3 When my parents sent me a gift card to our amazing local bookstore for my birthday, I wandered around with the intent of buying fiction. I got The Color Purple, The Great Gatsby, 1984, and The Fledgling by Octavia Butler.
I genuinely don’t remember how much attention I paid to the blurb on the back. But The Fledgling is definitely a vampire novel. Now, I read the Twilight series when I was in college and it was the rage, and I was fascinated and disturbed and remained disturbed. I haven’t touched a vampire anything since, but an Octavia Butler vampire novel will not be Twilight. That I’m convinced of.
However, one night before bed,4 I read the first two chapters of the book and was, well, disturbed. Have whatever opinions you want, I’m not of the belief that a vampire novel is inherently evil or any such thing. But based on how it rolled around in my mind through the night and into the next morning, I knew I probably shouldn’t finish it. 5
I’m sure it’s stunningly well-written. I’m sure it’s a provocative commentary on race and other social issues (the blurbs say so). It’s still laying on my bedside table and I do want to read the story. But I’ve learned something else too.
I’m most likely a highly sensitive person. Take whatever tests you want. I have the book sitting on my desk at my therapist’s recommendation but haven’t read it all yet.6 This aspect of who I am affects my reading. Or I should say that my reading affects my inner life. Most of the classics contain trauma. Tragedy is a broad part of human history. And it weighs me down. I’m careful about what I consume, in books or in movies/tv shows, because I carry it with me. It lingers. That’s why after my run of heavier fiction in January, I resorted to a YA novel by Madeleine L’Engle. It’s also why after 1984 and an aborted attempt at The Fledging, I picked up the next in the series by L’Engle.
Know yourself. Make good choices. Honor how God made you even if it means that you can’t read some books that don’t bother other people.7
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