Oh the long-gone days of summer reading

Reading for pleasure has the same fundamental problem as watching baseball.

The same essential quality that makes them such enjoyable pastimes makes them tough to enjoy: they take so much time.

It’s a terrible Catch-22.

I love reading and baseball in part for the time commitment they demand. But it’s a hard love to make work.

I relish the slow, relaxed pace of a ballgame, the batters stepping out of the box to adjust their grip, the pitchers settling into their windup and staring down the hitter, the foul balls, the conferences on the mound.

I wouldn’t want the game speeded up. Baseball isn’t supposed to be fast. It’s supposed to be measured, deliberate and patient, like the sun’s crossing toward the horizon.

But I sure wish the game could be speeded up. I don’t have the time to sit there for hours and watch every nuance. I’ve got a lawn to mow, a car to wash, and kids to take to the park.

I have a similar relationship with reading.

I remember when I was young and taking part every year in my library’s summer reading program. It was fantastic. I kept logs of titles and authors and page counts and plowed through book after book: The Outsiders, Treasure Island, The Cay, Then Again Maybe I Won’t, Johnny Tremaine, Call of the Wild, My Side of the Mountain . . . oh, I could go on and on. What wonderful summers those were. Summers when the reading was easy.

Those days are long gone for me.

When once I was able to spend a couple hours chewing into A Wrinkle in Time or Lord of the Flies, now I must grab my reading on the go, often in 10- or 15-minute increments. When once I could read undisturbed, now when I read my kids and wife believe I’m not doing anything and so feel free to barrage me with questions and requests.

 I just finished re-reading Umberto Eco’s phenomenal and complex The Name of the Rose. Here’s kind of how it went during a dramatic inquisition scene:

“’So,’ Bernard resumed, ‘you confess that you have revered Gherardo Segarelli as a martyr, that ["Can I have a brownie?" "No, you can have a granola bar if you’re hungry."] as a martyr, that you have denied all power to the Roman Church and declared that neither the Pope nor any authority could ordain ["How come she gets a brownie?" "She doesn’t get a brownie; I told her she could have a granola bar." "She got a brownie." "Put the brownie back! Both of you, get a granola bar."} and declared that neither the Pope nor any authority could ordain for you a life different from the one your people led, that no one had the right to excommunicate you, that since the time of Saint Sylvester all the prelates ["Dad! She took my granola bar!" "Give him his granola bar back!" "I didn’t take it, he dropped it!" "It has dog hair on it, can I get another one?" "Bring it here. There, no more dog hair, it’s fine." "I’d prefer another one." "Okay, get another one, I’ll eat this one."] that since the time of Saint Sylvester all the prelates of the church had been prevaricators and seducers except Peter of Morrone, that laymen are not required to pay tithes to priests who do not practice a condition of absolute perfection and poverty as the first apostles practiced [phone rings].”

By which time I couldn’t even remember who was talking and what the poor monk stood accused of.

No. the reading is no longer easy, but I persevere.

One day it may be all I have.