It's five months since I was last present on this blog. I have since popped by. Glanced briefly across at it before clicking elsewhere. Looked longingly to it from a distance and hurriedly moved away. The source of my malaise? Shame. Doleful, inexcusable shame.
I dislike neglect of any description. It smacks of a lack of control on the one hand and a lack of thought on the other. I am here guilty of both.
I knew there was a risk. Read my two previous posts and you know that I knew that I knew. And still I went ahead. Still I chose to continue irrespective. There are no excuses.
So I joined a reading group challenge. So I tried to set a deadline on finishing a book. It didn't work for me. It sent me backwards instead of urging me forwards. Can I say never mind? Put a line under it all? Onwards and upwards?
If it helps, I lost the group after the second check in. (Where did you go, group? Was it me??). And then, through my dismay at missing my deadline, I forced myself to finish MB. Even when the thrill of whales and their hunters had long gone. Which was fairly soon, if I'm honest.
But finish it, I did. Last week. Only four months short of the given deadline. It has been a busy summer. But enough of my excuses.
My reaction to the book: intermittently gripping, informative and exciting with long periods of incredibly intense descriptive passages. That frankly I could have done without. I was a tad dismayed that of 470 pages, Moby Dick only featured in the flesh for around 20 pages. At the very end. And then mainly in a frenzy.
Still the pervading gloom which Melville hangs over the tale was enough to hint at the outcome. And I was so joyous at closing the book for the last time that I could not really bring myself to sympathise with the fate of any of the characters. And most especially the hunters.
I have now found for myself some (much) shorter stories. To break me back into a regular rhythm of reading and writing. And to help ease away the shame of my months of neglect. If anyone's still out there to notice...