The reading disease

While it has cost me time before, it has never cost me a night's sleep. This reading bug I've caught has gotten a tight hold on me and seems to be squeezing harder all the time.

The immediate cause is the book I finished about twenty minutes ago on the tribulations between President Truman and General MacArthur, The General vs. the President. It's a very good read which, for the record, really didn't alter my thoughts on the issue. I still have sympathy for MacArthur's worldview yet agree that Truman did exactly what he had to do, things as they were. It was exactly what I believed before this book came into my hands. Still, one must feel differently, more enlightened, more deeply understanding of a subject after reading a balanced and entertaining take on it. But there is no particular call for reading to change a mind, really. Broaden it, I would say, yes. Yet abrupt and compelling change of mind isn't necessarily the point of reading or writing. Nor must it be.

That is however a sidebar point just now. As I've said before, books snowball for me. I read more quickly as I get further into a story and the further into it I get the more compelled I am to finish it post haste. So it happened yesterday evening. I sat down around 9, without even the TV on (I am less interested in TV the more I read) to read for only a bit before going to bed. Then, with the admitted exception of a couple of catnaps perhaps a half hour long each, I kept reading until done at about 7:15 this morning. I began at sunset and ended at sunrise, if you will.

Enlightenment and understanding are good and fine things. Yet they won't help me get the day's practical work done. They won't help me get them snakes repaired or those calls made (though I certainly will get the day's work done, there being Bill and Joe Cosgriff in me bones and on my conscience). It certainly won't help that part of my day will be left to wondering what book I should launch into after work. It won't help that no matter how tired I might be I will start another book and perhaps read too long tonight when I ought to get some real sleep. I simply never imagined contracting the reading disease so profoundly. I do hope it at least makes some positive difference in me.