Illium by Dan Simmons

Image of book cover courtesy of www.amazon.co.uk

This is the book I'm reading at the moment. It's a postmodern interweaving/retelling of the battle Troy and the Tempest wrapped up in science fiction, with a bit of comparitive analysis between Shakespeare and Proust thrown in for good measure.

The interesting thing is, I'm reading it in French. It's taking bloody AGES. Understandably. But, even more interesting, is that I'm loving it. Usually I don't truly read, I just skim, and if the plot is pedestrian or predictable (as is the case more often than not these days) I thumb through chapters looking for the significant paragraphs or just skip right to the end. (And sadly, I always understand exactly what has happened, even though I'm cheating. This is what I get for loving to read as a child -- oversaturation, boredom, disappointment).

But reading in French, I have to read EVERY word, otherwise I don't understand a thing. It's put the reading back into reading a book for me. The hours while away and I'm lost in a book, just brilliant!

It helps that Dan Simmons is one of my favourite authors. He doesn't just invent new worlds, he reinvents the old ones but makes them appear new, all the while hiding various enigmatic clues from the past. (All this time I thought I was bored with reading but maybe I was just bored with mediocre books).