Slowing Down is Hard To Do

Even with the best of intentions, I have read 64 books this year so far.   To be fair 45 of those books were manga (more on that later!), but still... it's a lot.  It's not easy to slow down.  I have many talks with myself about doing something else, and it's always an argument!  I think the biggest reason I haven't made any new blog entries over the past year is because I whipped through books so quickly that I didn't give myself the chance to think about what I read, let alone think about what I might want to say about it.   I wasn't going to do that again, so here I am late Sunday night, thinking about a book I read over a week ago.

No-one forgets their first dystopian... or at least it was that way for me.  Thirty-four years ago I read 1984 by George Orwell as part of high school English.  It was my second book by him (having been subjected to Animal Farm  by a really mediocre teacher which spoiled any possible appreciation I could have felt for it at the time).  I was blown away!  This book was remarkable, enraging, and  sinister.  When I was an adult, one of the first things I did was buy as many of George Orwells' books as I could get my hands on.   But still... even with the advent of the movie  in 1984, and that amazing soundtrack by The Eurythmics, it was not something very relate able, because Orwell's world Oceania seemed so removed from my own.

Not so with The Circle by Dave Eggers.  It was a gripping read, I kept hoping that the protagonist Mae Holland,  would get out somehow, but I was forgetting how that went for Winston Smith in 1984.  I shouldn't have been surprised at all, because without even knowing anything about this author, or his motives behind writing this book, I can firmly state that this is an updated version of that classic dystopia 1984.   I know it so well, but I didn't start to suspect it until Mae began public speaking, and quoting her insipid slogans that became mantras for the masses.  I admit at that point I was looking for more evidence to support my supposition, and I found a lot of it.   I'm not criticizing Eggers for doing this.  He did a splendid job of updating this essential story, hence making it eerier because it is so close to us now, technologically and socially.  

Last week, on the day when I had just read that part of the story about the wrist bands in the novel I had a student come in to see if I could charge his Fitbit... spooky!  It galvanized me in a different way, and it still upset the apple cart!  And it was a relief in other ways in that I am not a big user of social media (I rarely post), and I don't use a lot of apps.  Honestly, the most useful ones I have are all book related.  

Like other books that have inspired me to make changes, The Circle has inspired me to work on communication with people, have face to face encounters rather than leaving things to an email or a text.  As well, I am firmly entrenched in the anti-twitter camp.  I thought it was stupid when it first came out, and I think it is just plain rubbish now (especially considering a certain leader's over-usage of it).   Last year I saw a poster or two about using social media responsibly, so I think, given a chance, I will help to promote that too.

I am not a technophobe.  I love having so many resources at my fingertips, doing the job that I do, accessibility to information and it's many forms is, in my opinion, vital in the role of a librarian.  But at the end of my workday I switch everything off, and go home.  Do something different.  Meet friends for walks or coffee, go to the local library, listen to music or an audio book on my commute to and from work.  Cook food, clean the house, work on my crochet, take naps.  Read.  Live.