Active reading

 Grad school isn't as bad as I feared, in fact, having so much reading to do is a blessing and a pleasure. The downside, though, is that I have no time left to really treasure what I am reading and let it swirl around a bit in my mind before re-reading and finally reaching my opinion of it. I hate being so aggressive in reading.. telling myself again and again I need to read closely yet critically, so that by the end of the novel I should at least be able to talk about the basic facts about the story, be able to interpret it and have a certain perspective on it, ask intelligent questions that will lead on to an interesting debate/conversation in class. Of course, it's good to always be awake and aware of what you are feeling, but sometimes I doubt that writers wanted their books read that way. It's so.. purposeful and overly eager. Hmmph, what to do. I'll have to ponder over this one and find a way to be content. In any case, here are some excerpts from The Story of an African Farm that I really, really enjoyed:

"All things on earth have their price; and for truth we pay the dearest. We barter it for love and sympathy. The road to honor is paved with thorns; but on the path to truth, at every step you set your foot down on your own heart."

"A confused and disordered story - the little made large and the large small, and nothing showing its inward meaning. It is not till the past has receded many steps that before the clearest eyes it falls into co-ordinate pictures. It is not till the I we tell of has ceased to exist that it takes its place among other objective realities, and finds its true niche in the picture. The present and the near past is a confusion, whose meaning flashes on us as it slinks away into the distance."

- The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner