Of Time and Books

"Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day."
-Winnie the Pooh

I read 'The Book Thief' by Markus Zusak a year ago, borrowed from the library.
By the turning of the final page, I resented the sentimentality of the work, the fact that I felt pushed into feeling compassion for the main character: a child- The Book Thief- who had lost her family, loved books and was caught up in one of the most dreadful events in human history.
How could a decent person feel anything but sympathy for her? With that, how could I be free to form an opinion of my own? Even in the highly likely scenario that I came to admire the character, I would rather have arrived at that conclusion by myself and not through artful coaxing akin to emotional blackmail.
It was not so much that the girl's character left me cold; rather I was irritated by the glaring fact that I was fated to like her no matter what.
I mused to Mater the other week that I had not stopped thinking about it in twelve months. I had spent months defending my attitude and arguing with my own self in verbose bouts of literary debate that it was an overly-saccharine, self-indulgent novel.
I mentioned it to Mater and- I never learn- she sent me the book the following week.
While I still consider that such a carefully constructed character portrayal leaves little room for development of an opinion, I do feel that a second reading has, surprisingly, warmed me to the novel.
Perhaps this time I paid more attention to the little detail, to the lines beyond the child herself, to the humanity and the cruelty that surrounded her in the story.
At second glance, then, it is suddenly lyrical and lovely and heartbreaking and, though I took the slow train of stubbornness, reached my destination in the end.
I wonder if perhaps, bizarrely, the greatest review a writer can receive, beyond the accolades and typical applause and single-faced murmurs of approval, is this:
"I did not like your book at all. And now I do."

I know of somebody who, when I was little, took a book about a famous composer out of the library. It was an enormous volume, staggering in size, and filled with rich paintings and passages about the musician's curious life.
The person in question liked the book so very much that she renewed it before the due date and kept it for another three weeks. She did that repeatedly for a year and a half, I believe, until she was forced to return it when another composer enthusiast had requested the same book.
I do not doubt that she would still today have the book in her possession had that anonymous fellow not come along and intervened.

Nancy Drew stories are delightful for reading aloud at evening time to another book lover. I began reading 'The Secret of the Old Clock' to Spouse shortly after I found a used and antiquated copy in a thrift store. He found the plot gripping in a charming and timeless fashion.
The suspension of time is all too true, though, because I paused mid-sentence five years ago in California- and several homes and the width of the United States later, I have not had a chance to read the remaining chapters to my Spouse.
Somewhere out there, Nancy Drew awaits our command and is frozen, flashlight in hand, mouth open in perpetual moment of crooked discovery, ready for me to slide the book from its place on the shelf and begin again.

Time takes care of everything in its own way and books are no exception to that.