Jack's Place

Right book... Wrong time?

"There are some books one needs maturity to enjoy just as there are books an adult can come upon too late to savor" ~ Phyllis McGinley

         It's December 27th. The unexpected gifts litter tables and counters. The mountain of gift wrap awaits the recycle pickup. We're still patting our bloated tummies and planning our diets for the New Year. Like Pearl Harbor on December 9th, the only evidence of our recent guests is the debris left behind. I hope it's all wanted and welcome, and you don't have to spend hours at the return counters this year.
         Did you get any books? Were they books you wanted? Almost as importantly, did you get them at the right time? Oh, sure, you got them on Christmas morning, but here's what I mean.
         When I was about ten or twelve, I was perusing the books at a Salvation Army store, and picked up a rip-snortin' boys' adventure called The Seagoing Tank by Roy J. Snell. Published in 1924, it was the story of a fantastic submarine that mostly drove on tracks. It was on a mission to drive across the Pacific Ocean, and included in its crew two teenage boys, Curlie and Joe, stars of a series calling them the "Radio Phone Boys." This was a pretty fat book for a twelve-year-old, but I absolutely inhaled it! I wrote several little deep-sea adventures starring my friends from the neighborhood afterward, and I have to tell you, Jules Verne never inspired me like that!
         So a couple of years ago, I was able to acquire a battered first edition at a price that fit within my recreational budget, and I snapped it up. I read it cover-to-cover, but the wide-eyed child who had lived that first adventure was gone, supplanted by the cynical adult with an extra six decades of living behind him. I enjoyed it, yes, but most of the read was spent rolling my eyes at the scientific absurdities the whole narrative hung on.
         At the other end of the scale we find an odd gentleman sporting the name of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. I developed a love of horror by way of the 1950s monster movies, sporting ridiculous creations of radiation or chemistry run wild. Modern horror movies don't impress me at all with their heavy reliance on jump-scares and splatter, but the love of literary horror has stayed with me like a faithful, mischievous friend. So as a reader in my mid-teens, when I heard that Lovecraft was the father of cosmic horror, I could hardly wait to hike down to my local bookseller and pick up a compendium of his work.
         Rarely have I been so disappointed. This guy routinely used ten thousand words to describe a scene in which nothing happens. I mean, I enjoy a slow burn as much as the next guy, but that's all there was to the man. He lit the fuse and let it burn through chapter after chapter, but the bomb never exploded. He hinted, he suggested, he painted word pictures worthy of Leonardo, but he never delivered. I gave up in frustration way before I even approached the end. But I came back to Mr. Lovecraft a few years ago, and now I get it. I love the slow burn, the hinting, the sleeping catastrophe threatening to awake and devour the world just beyond the range of sight. But it doesn't have the thrill that I suspect it would have had I waited until I was ready. You really can't have a first encounter for the second time... Be careful what you read, or more precisely, when you read it.
         How about you? Have you ever had an experience before its time? Or after? I'd love to hear about it.

Stay inspired,
Taylor...