I am a slow reader. Joke all you like, but it’s true. When my wife and I are reading an article side by side, she’ll be filing her nails and tapping her foot by the time I’m ready to scroll down to the next section. This is not an asset for someone whose livelihood has to do with the written word.
Difficulties are compounded by the fact that I like very long books, and that I re-read compulsively. This is not an efficient way to become widely read; it is a downright bad way to stay on top of literary fashion. One of the several reasons I fit poorly into my M.F.A. program was a failure, followed by a refusal, to know what was going on. These literary people absorbed new books, new magazines, new reviews telepathically. They were the world’s fastest readers, which must be why they could lavish so much time and attention on how they dressed. They had smarmy comments about the latest stories in magazines I had never heard of, let alone seen, let alone read! They had an opinion about everything! They knew everything!
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