Up all night

I grew up in the north, but in the country.  My people had what others called a twang, but more than that they had little sayings and stories and ways that defined them as country. 

When I read books I read at the speed I am accustomed to and any unique accents come straight out of my own mind.  I make it my language.  I see the scenes through my understanding.  Popular writers write with this thought in mind.  It makes it easy for me to read.  It is clean and simple.  I slide through the pages lost in the idea of the story and that makes it entertaining and relaxing, so it is easy to prefer these books.

Then I read someone like Faulkner!  He takes me in and introduces me to the family like I should know them because we have lived together for two hundred years!  It is like I dropped over for coffee and am simply included in the conversation. 

The cadence is different.  The words and references are not familiar.  In the beginning it is like going from Dick, Jane and Sally, to advanced physics, I am lost.  I used to hate that.  It's worse than trying to read it in French because I assume I should understand everything that is said right off the bat and I don't.  That changes if I don't give up, though.

As I slip into the jargon and begin to get to know the characters they take on a wholeness that Dick and Jane never had.  I find myself slowly assimilated into the family, becoming more and more enmeshed in what is going on, developing real feelings for the people and animals and situations.  There is a depth and reality that begins to weave itself into my being until I am not just moved by it, I am deeply affected.

It can keep me up all night, make me need to stifle tears in the laundromat while I'm reading, leave an after taste that lingers long after I put the book down.  I am shocked that what I disdainfully called boring and dull when I gave it a cursory look can be so rich.

I cannot say that I love Faulkner, but I have to say that no other author ever kept me up all night because I was so entangled in feelings.