Certain phrases get stuck in your head, however long ago you heard them. “It’s your own time you’re wasting,” is one for me. I can hear immediately the world-weary way they were delivered by my primary school teacher.
I find it annoyingly patronising now as I did then. But as the years go by I do see the sense in it more and more — and I see more clearly what annoyed me about it. Just this week, tired from a long, grey January day I decided to relax in the evening with an unchallenging book — the history of Antwerp’s golden years could wait another day. I picked up a book I’ve been on-and-off with for months and which is part of a long cycle of novels. Within minutes, though, my peaceful literary repose was in ruins. I found myself wading through awful prose, rolling my eyes at cardboard characters, and groaning at the glacial and dull plot. It was bad. I could have hurled it across the room. And yet… I didn’t. Worse: I kept reading. It was my own time I was wasting, but why?
