miss smilla

This, really, is a reminder to myself that I shouldn't give up on things so easily. I've just picked up a book that I gave up on reading previously, and I'm really enjoying it. The book was a smash hit, bestseller back in the early 90s. It was the title that everyone was reading that year, and it was a critical success as well as a commercial one. Of course, I jumped on that bandwagon, and I bought it, and I dove right in, and... I hit a brick wall. It doesn't happen often that I give up on a book, but it does happen sometimes, and it happened with this one. I struggled, so I closed the book, and put it down.

But, here's the thing, the author did his job on me. The echo of the book never left me, even after decades. The flavour of it lingered. I don't know whether it was the characters, or the atmosphere, or the insights into a different culture that fascinated me, or a mixture of all of those things, but it put a hook deep into me and I never managed to shake it off. I do hate to give up on a book, and as I say, it doesn't happen often, so it could be that I felt a certain amount of guilt about that. And I do believe that sometimes it's just not the right time, and the right time will come along at the right time, so there could be some of that going on too. Regardless, I'm really pleased that I finally picked up a secondhand copy of it just before lockdown number three kicked in, because this time around, over 25 years since I tried it last, I'm really enjoying this book.