Not that anyone asked, but I’ve been “reading” Midnight Tides for MANY months and I decided to clarify a bit.
It’s not that I’m not enjoying the book and so going very slowly or making no progress at all. In part the lack of progress is due to a quirk I have. The more I “invest” my interest and expectations on something, the more I delay it. Like a pathological need to keep the best stuff last. Also meaning that I’ll likely go through lot of crap just as long I feel the very best stuff is right there waiting for me (and for better days). I’ve been systematically doing this with everything. Books, movies, games, and everything else associated with a good feeling. I’m one who finished Rhapsody, A Musical Adventure (btw, nice soundtrack) instead of the Final Fantas(ies) because these were good, and so to keep for later. So I still today have all the Final Fantasy games and a staggering PILE of other ancient but precious RPGs on my to-do list. I bought my copy of LotR when I was around fourteen and worshiped it like a holy monolith. But I couldn’t read it once I figured out that more books were connected to it, like the Hobbit and the Silmarillion, I just never settle for anything else than everything. The result was that I read LotR more than 10 years later, even if it was at the time my “favorite book I didn’t read”. Or, in general, that I can manage to read something only when I stop caring about it.
These days I know this habit of mine makes no sense and I try to fight it as much I can, but it still wins often. It’s like one of those obsessive–compulsive problems, the more you fight them the more they slip through and affect your life. Maybe one day I’ll find some great psychologist that explains it to me and fixes me. But in the meantime it’s affecting my progress with Malazan since I consider Malazan a so great work that it achieves that “holy” status that makes then hard for me to actually read and enjoy. The other aspect affecting my reading progress is still partly connected. I only read when I can achieve some perfect condition. Meaning that I’ll read the book if I don’t feel tired, mind well awake and ready, active, with a hot cup of green tea to heighten the mind and awareness, desire to read and so on. It goes without saying that reaching this ideal condition is a rare thing. So I end up reading when I’m going to sleep, I’m tired and so on. So I pick up some other book instead of Malazan. I read Pynchon, for example. I absolutely can read Pynchon while I’m sleepy. I can even manage to have nightmares about it, afterwards.
That’s all to explain this problem of mine. The more I won’t do something the more it’s because I love it. That said, I’ll also have some negative or critical things to say about Midnight Tides (and, I guess Erikson’s writing in general) that I think are worth considering. That part interests me, and I’ll probably try to discuss them. Maybe that gives me enough motivation to actually break the enchantment and finish the damn book.
