death and i have one thing in common

once, in high school, a teacher caught me reading the last page of a book i was reading. i have no memory of the book, or the ending, but i do remember the look of horror that i would "ruin" the ending for myself. i didn't even know that it was deviant reader behaviour. little did she know that this was chronic behaviour for me. to this day, often before i even buy a book, i will read the last page, perhaps even the last chapter, first.

so, dear teacher, and all others who have questionned why i allow this little behaviour to persist, i direct you to this quote:

of course, i'm being rude. i'm spoiling the ending, not only of the entire book, but of this particular piece of it. i have given you two events in advance, because i don't have much interest in building mystery. mystery bores me. it chores me. i know what happens and so do you. it's the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest and astound me.

there are many things to think of. there is so much story.

--p. 243
The Book Thief
Marcu Zusak

the narrator, Death, has it exactly right. i care very little for a suspense novel (though, of course, i will read them, as well as romance, fantasy, cereal boxes, whatever i can get my hands on). i care very very much for the characters about whom i am reading and about their lives: their loves and hurts and fears and dreams and whatever else it is that makes a human being. i have certainly gone so far as to laugh out loud hysterically, or, more often, to cry a good hard cry. i'll cry even if its the fourth or fifth or tenth time (lions of al-rassan i am thinking of you!). but even when a book evokes such a response in me, it very rarely has to do with the ending of the book and more to do with the present.

so, i will continue my nasty little habit. and i will rest easy, knowing that there are others, even if that other is a fictional entity in one novel, that knows a little bit about what i am talking about.

did i say thank you kristen? thank you. what a wonderful book.