This may sound a little odd, but one unexpected side effect of driving is that I’m getting more reading done. I mean, actual dead tree book reading, as opposed to wasting vast amounts of time online reading. The reason is that I pick my wife up from work four evenings a week, and the traffic being rather unpredictable, especially through the CBD, I generally allow the better part of an hour to get to her work. Yes, it has taken me over an hour to drive that measly eight kilometres, thanks in part to the bottleneck formed by the cutting under the railway line at Baiziwan, but mostly due to the vehicular insanity that frequently reigns from the entrance to the Dongjiao Market through the CBD to the southern edge of Hong Miao. Really, the run north from home to Baiziwan is sweet, and once I’m in Hong Miao, the rest of the trip is easy, but the Dongjiao Market and the CBD are often best described as slow motion mayhem. But usually I manage to get through there much quicker, and I usually have time to spare when I arrive at my wife’s work. The amount of time I have to spare can be anything from a few minutes to half an hour, though, so I’ve gotten into the habit of taking a book with me and reading as I wait. And so driving has got me reading more.

And so I picked up my copy of 余华/Yu Hua’s 《活着》/To Live, I book I acquired and first started reading somewhere in the region of three or four years ago. The trouble is, I acted on the half-remembered advice of one of my Russian lecturers, and used it as study. Study as in ‘look up every new word’. And so it quickly became work and all the fun was drained out of reading a book that I had been enjoying. And so, funnily enough, it was put aside and ignored for quite some time. About three or four years, in fact. And so I picked up this book I had failed to read and took it down to the car with me at four-ish every afternoon, drove up to Tuanjiehu, and read as I waited, but this time not worrying about new words, just enjoying the book. And so, funnily enough, this time round I did actually finish reading the novel.

But I have to say I’m disappointed, and I don’t think my disappointment is due to me having spoiled myself with so much Lao She and Lu Xun over the summer and autumn – at least, not entirely. No, I think my disappointment might be due to a couple of things lacking in To Live.

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