Arriving at the last page

I have always felt that when I get to the last page of a book, it is like arriving at a destination of sorts. From that very first sentence to that very last, there is a kind of movement, a kind of journeying and when reading a very good book, I feel that I've travelled somewhere, that I've been changed somehow.

That said, sometimes, a book that I've enjoyed all the way through just disappoints at the end. I have to say, I was sorely disappointed when I got to the end of Travels with my Aunt. Something rang false in that ending for me. I didn't trust the point of view of the character by the end.

Sometimes, the contrary is true for me. A classmate of mine in a writing class whose work I admire wrote an article on a book he liked, Desperate Characters, that I happened to read. I hated the book he recommended from the first awkward sentence. The only reason I kept reading it was because my classmate's admiration of the book was so passionate and because I trust his taste (not that I actually know the guy that well, but I like his writing, and I trust that his has informed taste). There were so many moments when I wanted to throw my hands up in exasperation. I didn't like the way the writer wrote. Clumsily formal in my opinion, and at times the dialogues were so awkward that I felt as if I was in the hands of someone who didn't know how to speak like a regular person. And yet, by the very end, I was blown away. That is always the best experience for me. Arriving at the last page to find that I have arrived somewhere completely unexpected, but that feels so so right. I find myself re-reading the book to find out how that can happen. How is it possible that I hate a book for the blocks that make it up (awkward clumsy prose in my opinion that makes me think that the writer must most certainly be constipated when writing) and yet love the place it brings me to by the end. It is like being on a reluctant trip and hating every moment of it, until one realizes in a strange illuminating moment that it has been a good trip after all, and one has arrived at a good place.

That is why I love books and why I love reading. Sometimes, it is just pure magic.