For years I've had this inane fantasy of finding a novel that's exactly 365 pages and reading one page per day for an entire year. How stupid is that?
It has its roots in Peter Matthiessen, who wrote a trilogy of novels about a Florida sugarcane planter; decades ago I read the first, Killing Mr. Watson, and loved it. (I've loved everything I've read of Matthiessen's.) But at this point, I'd have to reread that book before hitting the following two.
Fifteen or so years ago, Matthiessen condensed all three novels into one and titled it Shadow Country. It's a ~900-pager. So I think what happened is that I decided to buy a copy and read three pages per day over most of a year. And then I didn't do any part of that, at all.
I think I'm curious to see what would happen with comprehension and engagement. And maybe part of it is a fuck-you to Philip Roth, who said (not to me specifically), "To read a novel requires a certain amount of concentration, focus, devotion to the reading. If you read a novel in more than two weeks you don't read the novel really."
Anyway, have you ever tried such a thing? And/Or have you ever created a similar totally random reading challenge or goal? Reply, let me know.
