Fiction and Music

I fell into a book instead of sleep, and woke from the book a few minutes ago to realise that I'd made the wrong trip, and had landed in the wrong hour, the last discovery particularly alarming because I'd expected it to be 3am instead of 6.

(P.S. I'm particularly proud of above sentence. Pls convey your admiration to me at suitable time.)

I love Robin Hobb. Dammit. I'll explain my undying love some other post. When I can fully convey the depths of my affection without sleep deprivation interfering. Damn you, sleep deprivation.

It's been so long since I last indulged in fiction, and I'd forgotten how thoroughly oblivious to everything I can be once I start reading. I remember once when I was in primary school, my mum snatched an offending book out of my hands and threw it at the wall because I'd been ignoring the world for days due to my obsessive reading.

I say I 'indulge' in fiction not because non-fiction is a chore, but because fiction (or at least the non-arty/non-literature type of fiction + the popular non-fiction - damn it's so hard to define) is much easier to be entertained by than what we'd call serious non-fiction and 'literature'. It's so easy to sink into popular fiction because you don't have to work to appreciate it. Not saying that it's therefore inferior, no, I fully admire the authors I fully admire. It's just different, that's all. It's somewhat like the difference between non-popular classical music and popular music, including popular classical.

Damn these categorizations are hard.

I think that it takes effort to appreciate classical music - less effort as you become more familiar with it, but for someone the equivalent of a musical tabula rasa, pop music is obviously much easier. And songs (ie. music + lyrics) are much easier to understand than instrumental pieces because most people are more accustomed to communicating with words.

Perhaps there're some to whom appreciation of and communication through music comes much more easily. Not to me lar. I'm not very talented musically. Yes, I know I have 2 Grade 8s, but anyone with enough money and determination, or rather, enough inertia to continue learning once they've started could achieve the same. I'm not very good at music. I know my violin teacher is of the opinion (probably) that I can be taught, but it doesn't come naturally to me. Playing and appreciating music is much easier for me than listening to music. There're also times when I think I'm better at interpreting a score than realizing that interpretation, perhaps partly because I'm too lazy to practise. But actually, very often I view piano/violin practice in much the same way as some other person might view aerobics. I give my fingers something exciting and slightly strenuous to do while my thoughts are engaged elsewhere. The practices in which I view my playing as music are few and far between and very much treasured. But music is another indulgence of mine. Learning and playing music (even badly) makes me happy, and I pursue music purely for enjoyment's sake.

Ok where is this post going?

Oh, and people who read and/or collect Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series out of genuine appreciation or simply because you collected 4 books and it's getting a little draggy but hey, you figure you might as well collect the next because the series can't go on for many more volumes, and who would have guessed it's still not finished by the 11th installment: (ok mouthful) the author upped and died. And I know it's callous to care more about getting to the end of the damn series instead of the passing of a... well, very persistent and wordy person, but dammit I started reading the damn thing 10 years ago fully expecting to see an ending, which it now seems I'll be cheated of.

Yeah. I think I'm rambling. And contradicting myself. Should end here.