On Distracted (I mean inspired) Reading

So it seems I’ve caught the latest fever, the Downton Abbey fever, that is.  If you’re like me and living under a rock apparently, it’s a period drama about an aristocratic family ( and their servants ) in early 20th century England.  And it’s so wildly popular that the show has already made it into the Guinness Book of World Records.   Now I’m not one to jump on the bandwagon of the latest popular preoccupation.   The last time I found myself in mania mode, I had just reached the double digits and their name was New Kids on the Block.  Perhaps that experience taught me early that what’s “all the rage” translates in a few years to “Who?”  or “What?”

I didn’t even realize that there was a Downton Abbey craze until after I’d started watching the first season early last week.  Here’s how it all came about.  Months ago, I made a note of the show after it was given a mention by another blogger, I can’t remember who (Thomas, perhaps? ).  Then the other night after finding nothing on

Maggie Smith as Violet

television, my husband and I commenced to scrolling through our instant Netflix queue in search of something to watch.  Both of us too exhausted for a full length film, we settled on episode one of Downton.  I’m not typically a fan of costume dramas and period pieces (I know, gasp, right? Don’t hate me, it’s just not usually my thing.  The books, yes.  The movies, not so much.)  but I was willing to give it a shot.  When Maggie Smith made an appearance, forget it, hooked from that moment on.  As my husband says, “Every time she shows up on the screen I just keep thinking how much I love her and I forget to listen to what she says.”      We did a lot of rewinding during those first few episodes.

I did a quick Google search to find out how many seasons there’d been and how much we’d missed, and that’s when I discovered the frenzy.  And that’s also when I discovered that I had just missed the premiere of season 2, which began airing in the U.S.  on PBS last Sunday.  To my relief, they are  showing that episode again before the current one, beginning at 7p.m. tomorrow night.  Whew!  This evening I’ll be taking in the remaining episodes of the first season in preparation.

All of this has put me in the mood for two things.  1) marmalade cake.  I have no idea why.  To my memory such a cake hasn’t been mentioned in any of the episodes I’ve seen so far.  It’s likely I would have wanted one anyway.  I tend to crave oranges in the winter.  But it also seems like something they might have eaten, possibly at tea?  So I made one . . .

Downton Abbey's Lady Mary Crawley

2) to read something Edwardian.  I ordered a copy of John Galsworthy’s The Forsyte Saga and while I’m waiting for that to arrive, I’ve picked up a copy of Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady, not Edwardian of course, but there was something in the brief description I read of Isabel Archer which reminded me of Mary Crawley.  I could be totally wrong, but the accuracy of my assumption is not so important really.  It inspired me to take a first look at Henry James, and fifty pages in, I can say that I’m really enjoying it so far.

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I’ve learned that I’m a rather easily distracted reader.  I don’t mean that I get easily distracted while I’m reading (though that sometimes happens too), I mean that I bounce around from one author or time period to another like a kid in a candy store.  As soon as I land on something really good, wait, that over there looks really good too!  While I love the idea of immersing myself in Shakespeare until I’ve mastered him, I know I will never be that reader.  I make plans that I don’t stick to.  I compose lists that I don’t follow.  I join challenges that I don’t complete.  I helplessly throw up my hands in resignation.  Maybe I lack self-discipline, but I can’t manage to stay on one track when another calls to me.

Having said that, I am still continuing with my Shakespeare studies.  I recently finished A Midsummer Night’s Dream and I’m slowly working my way through Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt.  While Greenblatt isn’t as fast-paced or witty as Bryson, he expounds on many things that Bryson touched on.      So one “track”  is never completely abandoned in favor of another.  If books were stepping stones, I certainly wouldn’t be taking the most direct path across the stream.   I hop upstream for a while and then back downstream and maybe I’ll never make it completely across.  But all in all, I think a chaotic, nonlinear approach works for me.  I might not become a master of Shakespeare reading this way, but following my inspiration keeps the passion alive.  And that’s the most important thing, right?

How about you?  What sort of things inspire your reading choices?  Are you linear and methodical?  Or do you bounce around too?  Do you believe that there’s a “best” way to approach reading through literature?

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