Travis and Michelle Fitzgerald's blog

I’m rarely wrong about books. Hmm, that needs a little explanation.

I’m rarely wrong, after the first chapter or so, about whether I will like a book. And by “like” (for those of you who don’t know my reading habits) I mean “keep on my shelf and read at least five more times". Given this definition, it may be a bit surprising that my bookshelves aren’t groaning under the weight of …wait. I digress.

The happy part of either liking or never finishing books (and the latter is rather rare) is that authors who write styles and characters that I like to read generally supply an ending that I enjoy as well. A satisfactory conclusion all around. This is not always the case.

At Thanksgiving I was telling the family that although the movie looks faciniating, I was never able to get through The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. Didn’t like it, couldn’t read it, wanted to slap all the characters. And on these matters I am rarely wrong. But, afterwards I pulled the book back down and gave it another go. I got all the way through this time, and needed to see where this story was going. I bought the other two books in the trilogy and sat down to read.

Have you ever seen The Princess Bride (movie) where the Grandson gets fed up with the book and asks his Grandpa, “Who gets Humperdinck?” On getting an unsatisfactory answer, the kid yells, “Jesus, Grandpa, what did you read me this thing for??” That’s how I felt at the end of the trilogy. On the one hand, perhaps I should have listened to my initial response and not read on. On the other, I got about two and a half books worth of decent story out of the trilogy, which isn’t bad. Maybe I just won’t read the ending anymore (though there isn’t really a good break point where it gets depressing…).

I’m still looking forward to the movie, however. It will be interesting to see how it ends.
~M