Willing and Reading

I believe there are two sorts of people in the world: those who skip to the last page of the narrative to read the last word, and those who don't. I'm terrible for it, always telling myself that, that is exactly what I'm not going to do, that it will only ruin the story for me, that it's a waste of a book. And yet, about 60 pages in, almost always, my resolve crumbles and I flip to the back of the book, and read, sometimes stopping in between my place and the end, my heart dropping as a much beloved character dies. It's an awful and horrid habit, and I can't stop myself.
That's a huge deficit in willpower- I think. And it's not like I'm an naturally weak-willed person, really. So I wonder if there are other factors than just my desire to know what happens and my slightly swayable will.
Sometimes, I think, it's because the plot is strong and the writing is poor. If the words are rubbish, then why bother with the author's embarrassing and clumsy prose? Because you want to know the outcome, that's why. I'm positive that some part of my inclination to read the finale of nearly every damn book I pick up is that I read books with great plots and some less-than-Markus-Zusak writing.
Maybe it's partially that I'm busy, that I don't have enough time, really, to read as many books as I want to, so I skim through novels hoping to give my story-starved brain the impression that it's absorbing as many books as it would like to.
And another thing- since I've started writing more (though, this blog is no indication of that) I found that I'm able to predict what happens in a book nine times out of ten. I've read up on plot diagrams and listened to lectures and I just kind of get where a story is going..
The things that really stick with me these days are the things that surprise me, and that make me wonder what's going to happen next. That's why SotA makes me so happy; At Kalles, I had gotten to a point where it felt I knew what was coming next- like I wasn't really learning anything that I hadn't already been told a thousand times. I knew there was so much more to learn and to know, but maybe I just wasn't absorbing what I supposed to be. There were exceptions of course, classes that always made me think, but at SotA it's like that all the time. (Can you tell that I'm sort of excited to go back?)
Anyway, back to the book thing. I have a New Year's Resolution (Which, usually, I don't really believe in) - I'm not going to read the end anymore, no matter how tempting it may seem. I'm going to hold off.
This is not going to be made any easier by the fact that I got a shitload of books for Christmas and I have less that twelve hours before my schedule goes crazy again...
But I'm going to do my best.


Afterword: I went and saw Sherlock Holmes yesterday. It was fantastic, and if you have an extra three hours and twelve bucks (stupid movie prices) you should go see it; If you're a fan of the old TV series Sherlock, I don't think you'll be as disappointed as you expect- Holmes is still a schizophrenic genius who you kind of suspect of being gay.
It really is a great movie, both leads doing a great job.
I just kind of had to give some attention, what with the Church of Avatar rapidly eclipsing Christianity as America's Religious Majority.