Not everyone is happy to point out their own short comings. I don’t like it, but I do it.
I tend to wear most all my feelings on my sleeve and speak my thoughts way more often than just thinking my thoughts.
Pointing out personal short comings is one thing, pointing out how stupid or silly I feel in the world is worse.
I’ve always struggle with my lack of education and the feelings I have of being stupid. And, for the record – I am not stupid. In fact at times I am pretty smart. Still, it took me a while to accept this, realize that I am teachable, but I can still fall back into feeling quite stupid, quite easily.
Last night, I had that feeling. The “I’m a dolt†kind of feeling.
This particular time is really not that big of a deal and yet, I’m still shaking my head and the old feelings of being a goof, of being stupid have been raised in me… again.
Here is what happen.
I started a new book the other night. The book is Island by Alistair MacLeod. This is very well written. Yet, like a lot of books, this seem to take a few chapters to get into the swing of it.
Still, it had my attention and I knew it would be worth the struggle.
The struggle for me was that I couldn’t follow the story.
I would read a chapter, start to get into the story, and think, oh boy, I’ve got a great read here! Then, I turned the page, into the next chapter, and I couldn’t find the story or the characters.
It felt like I was starting a new book, but I also know that sometimes, writers take side tracks and have stories inside stories.
So, I persevered.
By the end of the chapter again, I was well into it and loving the book and the story. I kept thinking the author will tie up the loose ends soon.
Then in next chapter I’d fall again into not following the story and couldn’t for the life of me keep track of who was doing what and wondered where I had missed the connection between this chapter and the others…but, I kept reading because this chapter was interesting, and maybe the boy in the first chapter isn’t important to the girl in the second, or the man in the third.
Last night, I was half way through this book and while I really enjoyed each chapter – I could not for the life of me connect the dots as a book with a particular story.
Uhm… finally, confused and frustrated… I read the book jacket to maybe get an idea of the synopsis of the book.
What I read… “this is the best collection of short stories…â€
Duh.
I only feel a little stupid.
This made me lol. And is totally something I would do. If it makes you feel better, I haven’t even read a book in over a year (I don’t think baby books count) so you’re already way ahead of me!! 🙂
Well, unlike Kayleen, I HAVE actually dne this before, and felt pretty dumb as well. There was the period of confusion, the wondering when it would all connect, the moment of realization, and the *headdesk* interaction. With you on this one, Jan.
So funny.
I often have to write down main character names and brief introduction of who they are and how they relate to each other. If an author doesn’t tie characters together fairly quickly, or jumps around in time a lot, I get pretty confused.
Read a lot of short stories Michael? 🙂
Not really. That might be a good idea for me, however. I’m not a huge reader. Currently reading a book about Artificial Intelligence (The End of the Computer). I’m halfway through, and going through it at a very very slow pace.