Realizing that you like a book can occur just about any time. Our liking of a book typically develops as we read (that’s what turns the pages), but that is not the only way. Sometimes the first page can appeal to us so profoundly that we know from the onset this book will be good. 1984 fits nicely into this category. With an opening line of “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” you know the book is worth your time. Occasionally we struggle through a book, wondering why we continue the effort only to be surprised not by the ending necessarily, but by something ineffable that leaves us content and enriched at the end. This at-the-dying-moment-of-the-book realization has happened to me three times.
The first time was as I finished Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping. It is such a quiet book and I questioned numerous times why I was still reading it. Yet something unseen and unfelt must have been tugging me along, because the last ten pages provided a unique experience. Those ten pages completely saved the book. I closed the book and thought “Wow.”
The second time was reading Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint. Yeah it’s funny and all, but the book seemed crass and whiney throughout. Even the last page remains crass and whiney, but somehow it all comes together and I found myself laughing as I closed the book. I occasionally recall the ending and laugh again.
The third time happened yesterday as I finished Joan Didion’s Blue Nights. The Year of Magical Thinking is incredible, so I wondered what it was about Blue Nights, what did it lack, why did it not have the same precision as The Year of Magical Thinking? I settled on the idea that no one can write two poignant grief memoirs. Blue Nights seemed confused, disjointed, and lacking. Then I read the last three lines of the book. They are bone-chilling.
