And ever since then, for some series that I've discovered, I would pick up the second book first before reading the first one.
So that's one weird habit I've got.
And when I started reading 1984 by George Orwell, I realized that I have another weird habit.
1984 started off with a description of a setting.
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.
The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a colored poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a meter wide: the face of a man of about forty-five with a heavy black mustache and ruggedly handsome features." (Orwell 1)
Ok, so you know like in video games or whatever (to be honest, the only video game that I religiously play is Bastion) it starts off black then slowly, blocks of colors and stuff start to appear and build up onto each other until you get a clear image of...a thing. (Do video games even do that?) (Hopefully you know what I'm talking about.)
That's how I would start a book. And as details gets added as I read along, I would mentally move the elements along, or maybe erase them like I'm designing a house in the Sims 3. But later on, when there's a new setting, or when I start a new chapter . . . well, my mind doesn't do that anymore. This is where it starts to get movie-like.
And as for characters, I would always picture the protagonist near my age. It doesn't matter if they're canonically thirty-nine like Winston here, I will picture them as a person in their teens or twenties.
I think it's because I had spent years reading books with characters near my age like Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Gone, and the Stoneheart Trilogy. And sometimes I wish that I can control my imagination. I don't want to see people around my age die.
AND ANOTHER THING.
My favorite books, the one thing that they all have in common is angst . . .
I don't know what makes it so attractive to me. I don't enjoy reading sad books with lots of death in it (at least I don't think I do) butIkeeppickingbookswithlotsofowiestuff.
Like my friend thrives on other people's pain (including her friends, I know this well) (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) but she doesn't like to read sad stuff.
I'm the opposite. I don't like hurting people but man, I try my very best to look for sad stuff to read/watch/draw/write about.
She called us walking enigmas.
Her: I'm a walking enigma and so are you
Me: ye ah
Her: that or we're just really picky sado-machoists
Me: i prefer walking enigmas
Me: picky sado-masochists doesn't sound as nice
So what about you guys? What weird reading-related things do you do?
Let me think, ummmmmmmmm, oh yeah, um i view the characters in my head differently from how they are described sometimes and i also always read post apocalyptic novels too, however, i do not get depressed or saddened easily so i just honestly love the setting and characters and fear and for that reason i really hate it when they give the characters in those kinds of stories plot armor, in my ideal novel they would all die and in horrific ways, wow i sound like a psychopath. I also have a vision of the world before i read it, and then i am in denial when it introduces more details, so kind of like the opposite of you, as soon as i read about a place it automatically forms in my head. That is all i can think of right now, i will comment later if i think of more.
ReplyDeletePS. Bastion is really good, good choice of game to play religously.
PSS. Have you beaten it, what did you think of the ending and which did you choose.(assuming you have beaten it.)