[Prestidigitweeze]

My reading habits evolved from years of sampling the poetry and prose on my parents' bookshelves. The stylistic characteristics of the writers on those shelves -- Thomas Browne, Hart Crane, Walter Pater, Spenser, Charles Lamb, the metaphysicals -- are why my taste in prose tends to favor the polyphonic (to use De Quincey's term).

Unless a book's style is pedestrian, I tend to want to consume it slowly, like a bottle of Germain-Robin Old Havana or a box of Belgian sweets.

I've seen a lot of threads that seemed especially concerned with finishing books. But if I really like a book, I'm more interested in taking the time to absorb it than finishing it on schedule.

When I first picked up M.D.H. Norton's translation of The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, I was stuck in San Luis Obispo and surrounded by ballet dancer friends who thought I was too cerebral. Rilke's novel was the only thing in the place that connected with me spiritually and intellectually. That book was like medicine to me.

I was sad the day I finished it. Even now, I still return to the translation by Stephen Mitchell and reread it slowly.