Books

One Hundred Years of Solitude: What it taught me?

Hello Everyone,

Hope you all are doing well. Today, in this post I will talk about what ‘One Hundred Years of solitude’ book taught me about reading.

I remember I was very eager to read the book, ‘One hundred years of solitude.’ I have always read good reviews about the book, and moreover, I have never read any of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s books. It was in my TBR list for a very long time, so finally, when one of my friends gave this book to me, I was very happy. But my excitement dissipated when I started reading it. I did not enjoy the book at all. But in this process, I learnt something, and that is what I am going to share with you today.

It has always been very difficult for me to leave a book in between. Even if I am not enjoying it, I would try my best to finish it. In fact, there are very few books which I have left in between, one can count them on fingers.

One of the reasons for not being able to leave a book in between is that I always think that something good will come up and I will enjoy the book. Or how can I decide I don’t like the book if I haven’t even read it whole.

Secondly, I always thought of finishing it and counting it among the books I have read. I would always think about the time have utilized in reading the book, would consider it as wastage of time as I can’t even count the book in my ‘Read books list.’ I would not think that if I am not enjoying the book, even though it is in my ‘Read books list’ I am wasting my time. So instead of thinking about reading for fun, I was reading for the number of books I have read.

While reading ‘One hundred years of Solitude’ book, I realized that I am not enjoying it at all. But I was stubborn enough to keep on going with it. It is 420 pages long book and I read around 300 pages of it. But let me tell you what happened while reading these 300 pages.

one hundred years of solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I started loathed my reading time. In fact, I became irregular with my reading habit. It took me around 2 months to finish these 300 pages. Moreover, I was not looking forward to my reading time as I always do. Finally, when I decided that I will leave the book, I realized I am into a reading slump. I could not read any book. Whatever I picked up, I just didn’t like it. It took me 1-1.5 months to get over this reading slump. I would detest reading a thick book, or a classic, or anything with slightly difficult language. It was an Agatha Christie book, and a children’s book which finally helped me out in getting over the reading slump.

So what did I learnt from this experience? I learnt that it is okay to leave a book, I am reading for fun, to enjoy reading, not to increase the number of books I have read. I have also made some rules so that I won’t have such a bad reading slump again. Here are the rules:

  1. I make sure that whenever I am disrelishing my reading time, or at any point, I realize I am not enjoying the book I will leave it.
  2. If I am reading a non-fiction book, and I really want to give the book a chance, I would skip a few chapters. It helps me in getting over the boredom and I won’t regret leaving a book to which I want to give a chance.
  3. I read somewhere, and I really liked the idea. Read the book 20%, if you are still not liking it and enjoying it, then leave it. If a book cannot grab your attention or interest in its first 20%, then it is unlikely that you will enjoy this book.

Lastly, I would like to say that if I am not enjoying a book it does not mean that the book is not good. This book is really a good one, and I have always heard and read good reviews about it. Maybe I was not in the right phase to enjoy the book. Maybe in future, I would give it a second chance and would love it as most people do. It is just I didn’t enjoy it at that time, but the book still taught me a good lesson about reading.

And with this, we have come to the end of this post. If you are looking forward to reading some classics, then here is a book review of one of the classics by George Orwell, give it a read. I will see you with another post. Till then, keep celebrating life!

With Love,

Komal

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Tangled Tourista
Tangled Tourista is an online diary, which is about travel, food and books. Here you will read about book reviews and suggestions, tested travelling tips and about new cafes and restaurants around and their reviews.

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