Les Incompletes

Most people I know finish one book and only then pick up another. And this is so even if they do not like the book for one reason or the other. Till a few years ago I was like that too, labouring through books I did not like because of a self-imposed rule that the book in hand must be read cover to cover before any other book is taken up. 

But what with so many compulsions in our lives from which we cannot get away, where you must willy-nilly do the bidding of others, I felt that in this matter at least I will discard that rule. I will read a book only until it holds my interest, no later. My point is that if I feel like picking up a book from where I left it, I will do it anyway, naturally and without the stress of constraints I place on myself. This practice has resulted in a vast collection of incompletely read books (I took care not to say half-read). 

Mind you, these books I left unfinished are by no means badly written. In fact some of them are classics. It is just that my eyes lit up at the sight of better goodies. To name a few of these unfortunates in recent times - Dickens' David Copperfield,  Marion Zimmer-Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown, and a few volumes of Ashis Nandy and Sudhir Kakar. 

But the point is, will I go back to them? Will I recommend them to a friend? Yes and yes. Maybe that's why I take them for granted.