I hate leaving things unfinished. Ever since I can remember, I've found the drive to finish pretty much everything I've started, big or small, good or bad, interesting or boring, easy or difficult. The big things, like Eagle Scout, undergrad, master's degree...hopefully I'll add Ph.D. to this list next year. And the small things, like papers, movies, books, and Daily Kos diaries. My drive to finish things is what keeps me confident that I'll finish this dissertation on time. When I don't finish something, no matter how minor, it leaves a nagging in the back of my head that I can't quite shake.
Something has been nagging me for years now. A book sits on my shelf that remains unfinished, the book jacket tucked a little over halfway through its pages to mark my place. A place that I marked over three years ago. The nagging is kind of like the heartbeat in Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, only it's coming from my bookshelf and reminding me that I started something and never finished it.
I've always been a huge fan of anything written by Stephen King, and I could usually fly through one of his novels. The man could write about the production of cornmeal and make it terrifying and interesting. I'd seen his recently released book Under the Dome on store shelves, and I was eager to read it. So in 2010, when my sister-in-law asked what I wanted for Christmas, it was at the top of my list. A dystopian novel about a town trapped under a mysterious dome seemed silly considering it was a plot line from The Simpsons Movie, but like I said, King can pull anything off. It was a doorstopper at over 1,000 pages, but I was up to the challenge. Or so I thought. On Christmas, that doorstopper was mine.
As eager as I was to start, I didn't begin the book until a few months later. It was my last semester in college, and I was busy. I believe I got started sometime near the beginning of the summer of 2011. I also worked that summer, so I didn't get as much time as I wanted with the book, but I was enjoying it nevertheless. I loved King's obvious critique of the Bush administration and the post-9/11 national security state--the town's tyrant was clearly based on Dick Cheney. It was different from most of King's other books, but I ate it up.
And then, when I was about halfway through the book, I moved to Houston for grad school. This was a pretty big upheaval in my life, and I wasn't much in the reading mood. Then, grad classes started, and I didn't have time to read anything but course-related books. Then, after coursework, I had to read a few hundred other books for my comprehensive exams. Then, after I passed comps, I had to get started on dissertation research. Now, it's all dissertating all the time. Under the Dome remains half-read.
When it was announced that there would be a TV show based on the book, I was excited, because it presented an opportunity to "finish" the book without reading it. Not so. The show is so wildly different from the book (and not in a good way) that I stopped watching altogether. And so, I'm left with one of my few unfinished projects. At this point, over three years later, I'll probably have to start the book from scratch if I want to finish it, because I remember very few details. I have no idea when I'll find the time to do that. Or the energy--that's the bigger problem. We'll see. I fear I won't get the chance until I retire.
Until then, I'll just have to live with my unfinished book mocking me from the shelf. I bet Stephen King could write a good story about that. But I'll be damned if I start reading it.
Do you have any unfinished business? What do you want to kibitz about tonight?
|
|
|
|
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
|
|