I don’t know if any of the rest of you feel this way, and if you do, you may call it by a different name. Let me explain…
For me, I often reach a certain point in a book where I no longer want to put it down before I read straight through to the end. The exact placement varies from book to book and from author to author, but the concept pretty much remains the same - this is where the pace and the remaining content match up. It could be just before the last page, or 200 hundred pages away - it’s the point where you want the remainder to unfold as the author intended, and you surrender yourself to them.
A prime example being the one from which our family slang term was coined - A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. I was finished work for the day, and I was sitting in a restaurant. I was somewhere around a hundred pages from the end and I sensed - this is the point of no return. One more paragraph and you’re in it to the finish. I could tell it was going to be one of those endings that makes me weep like a Leafs fan, so I decided rather than cry in public, I’d save the end for when I was back in my hotel room in about an hour. Boy, was that ever the right decision.
I’ve had similar experiences with mysteries, where I’ve hit that point, gone past it and been interrupted by real world trivialities, only to have my experience of the book ruined. No, this is not a concept to be trifled with, and with certain books, I’ll admit to having taken extreme measures to finish the point beyond the fine balance without being disturbed.
So, am I alone in this, or do others unplug the phone and hide in a fort made out of sofa cushions so they can read the thrilling conclusion in peace?
My problem is that I tell myself I’m going to stop reading at 1 am. Then 1 am comes along and I’m only 100 pages way from the end. So I end up finishing at 4:30 am.
This is the number one reason why I can’t keep a normal sleep cycle.
I don’t run away for the conclusion of a book because I’m usually alone when I’m reading. I can’t read any part of a book with distractions.
I’m pretty used to reading with distractions - most of my reading time is stolen while riding the subway or eating. Right at the moment, there’s so much going on in my life that I just don’t get enough time to read, and so I’m re-reading things or staying with books where it doesn’t matter if it takes me five or six pages to remember who is who.
There’s a certain level of writing beyond which I have to save it for a quiet situation; it’s the kind of writing where it’s closer to studying than to pleasure reading. I’m pretty used to reading in noisy environments, and the concentration required to shut out other sounds is actually helpful - it ensures that I don’t start reading so quickly that I miss details. My wife is incredible at this - when she is immersed in a book, you have to touch her to get her attention.
It might make an interesting thread to list what different people find distracting and what they can put up with or don’t notice - I can read to music, but only if the music is extremely familiar and/or uninteresting. Lyrics in English are right out - even if I don’t like the piece, I’ll be listening instead of reading. Restaurants, subways, noisy public places aren’t a distraction to me at all. TV, however, is annoying to read over and I avoid it altogether.
Re: A Fine Balance, the novel - I wanted to finish it somewhere other than a public place not because I wanted to be away from distractions, but because I knew it was going to be a teary finish. It ended somewhere even tearier than I had expected, and it wouldn’t have been a comfortable experience in a restaurant. I’ll say no more…