Remember Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy? I've not forgotten this book (which I even cut down into five very manageable sections), but which I hit a snag at about page 672 almost a whole year ago. Lata and her suitors have been waiting patiently in the wings. I've been thinking a lot lately about what a mess my reading has become and all the growing pile of languishing books (ASB is the sore thumb of the pile). I feel I should just allow myself two (okay maybe three) books at once and shift a new (as in something else partially read) into the pile as one gets shifted into the finished pile. Part nine, where I left off was something of a slog of a chapter and so I set it aside. If I can just make myself read through it . . .
It's Susan Hill who gave me the (notsogentle) nudge to look at my pieces of ASB. One of the recent essays I read in her book is all about the books we try to read but can't seem to manage. How can I read Anna Karenina and War and Peace and Don Quixote (for heaven's sake) but not read A Suitable Boy? Where has my concentration gone off to? So the third chunk of the book (half way through even) was tucked into my book bag today.