Most importantly, I must apologize to Bill Bryson (yeah, as if he's reading). My previous assessment of his book "A short history of everything" was a bit premature. As expected, it was not entirely new material but did still have a bit of interesting fluff to add to the attic of my mind.
Any rate, on to complete my survey of Joseph Conrad in earnest now even if it kills me. (Which, as it turns out, might be the preferred outcome.)
I have determined at least that my approach to these novels, like much in my life is much too goal-oriented. You can see it even in my reading list. The only thing I really note for each of these books is a brief synopsis (maybe) and the date they were finished. As I'm reading, the only real information is the page count. That leads to needless hurrying that diminishes the REAL goal here of actually learning something. I can see this tendency of quantifiable goal seeking even at work as I check off things on my TODO list while ignoring the fact that I'm not going about things in the most efficient or elegant manner possible. Perhaps this is a side effect of the attitude of the world in general but it'd be a good thing to put a stop to. Maybe I'll spend a couple days writing down how many times I feel this way in a 24-hour period... then once I've established a baseline I can work to reduce the number of times that I do things in a quantitative rather than a qualitative... no... wait... I think that may be wrong too. Damn it there I go again.
Currently Reading: “Typhoon and other Tales”, Joseph Conrad [36/220]
Periodic Robism: Whatever the wildest and most far-flung imaginings of mankind may be, they all pale when compared with the wildest and most far-flung of realities.
