Words fail me

Reading for pleasure is my biggest challenge yet.

The speech and language OT who has been investigating my problems with reading signed me off last week. She did lots of tests.

I don’t have aphasia, which would be very unusual in HD in any case. I’d successfully completed my homework; to find a book I actually wanted to read. I chose Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square because it’s one of my brother’s favourite books. The pub scenes must have had the ring of truth. My parents met in ‘darkest Earls Court’ where the book is set, but 20 years later.I read it from cover to cover.

Like many people, my shelves are full of books I feel I should read. In my study, dauntingly, there are difficult books from floor to ceiling; Slavoj Zizek and Irigaray’s This Sex Which Is Not One and Primo Levi If This is a Man and Lacan’s Ecrit’s. The only light reading is Katie Price’s Pushed To the Limit, which makes everyone laugh when they see it, apart from the feminists.

The Unread

I think of myself as the type of person who reads philosophy over breakfast. But I busked my Critical Theory MA with the Fontana Modern Master’s series as my constant companion. I still feel like an intellectual fraud not an educated person, with some justification. My children were amused to discover how bad my O and A levels were but I was a teenage activist in the Thatcher era

Growing up in the eighties was terrible for my concentration. The time I spent at extra curricular political meetings and drinking with striking miners was bad for my grades but vital for the development of my revolutionary consciousness. My mother supported me until I went to a demo during school time and she started worrying about my future prospects.

These days, I want to read for pleasure not to polish my critical thinking skills. My mother read three books a week and my daughter has just finished The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. She loves dystopian fiction. We’re working up to The Handmaid’s Tale via a TV adaptation of Atwood’s feminist classic.

The OT has suggested that my reader’s block might be psychological and cognitive because it’s highly selective. We were amused to discover that my columnist’s ability to search and destroy my journalistic bête noirs is intact. I read and retained various confessional columnist’s entire oeuvres.  One in particular about someones boiler breaking down when the weather was bad, which was fixed as soon as the sun came out and the temperature rose again. I even remember where I was when I read that particular column.

In the past, I have always skim read everything to siphon off ideas. Or, as my husband says I read books for evidence to support my theories, rather than challenge them and there is some truth in that. I read so quickly – a hundred miles a minute – and it’s hard to get out of this habit.

I read Patrick Hamilton quickly but some of it went in. I tried to read with an open mind without rushing to critical judgment. As expected, the pub scenes were well drawn. I could picture my father propping up the bar and being endlessly tolerant of the rackety alcoholics. He is a good listener and always seemed to attract the people no one else would sit next to.

My friend has another explanation for my selective reader’s block. I might be jealous of good writers, particularly successful ones. This has the ring of truth. I’ve spent many disagreeable hours slagging off literary celebrities to anyone who would listen but I’m over that thankfully.