Since the election, I have tried to remove myself from any sort of social media, online news, or generally any platform that features political discourse. (The exception being BlueSky, where I only follow people who write poetry, fiction, or make art.) There was a certain amount of anger surrounding the decision (if the lunatics take over the asylum, leave the asylum), but, a few months into it, I’ve started thinking of it as a hard reset for the way I consume information.

Everyone needs a reset now and again. Getting off of social media for a while can’t possibly hurt, and I believe there are substantial benefits to your state of mind. Not the least of which is I have more time to read.

Of the few “news” sources I still look at, Cory Doctorow’s Pluralistic is easily my favorite. Cory Doctorow is (more than) a science fiction writer and, frankly, much better blogger than I am. He manages to put together a daily post that is informative, clever, and pertinent, all while churning out novels at a dazzling pace. I don’t know how he does it. All I have to do for this blog is read and I think it’s tough.

Doctorow has a new book coming out in February that he’s currently posting a bit of, and I can’t recommend it highly enough:

I will probably take a bit of time off from THE LIST to read it, as I have for every book he’s published in the last few years.

I’ve come to accept that I’m going to have a … contentious relationship with Midnight’s Children. It has become apparent that Rushdie is purposefully delaying the introduction of the main character. Well, that’s not entirely true. The main character is the narrator and he’s telling his life’s story, but the first 25% of that story is about things that happened before he was born. The book starts with the introduction of how his grandfather and grandmother met.

That’s fine if you’re Charles Dickens, but by the time the main character makes his appearance in Midnight you realize that Rushdie is doing this on purpose. He’s purposefully dragging his damned feet. The whole first quarter is supposed to be slow. You’re supposed to get frustrated with it and wonder when things will actually get moving.

And I’m not a fan. It’s similar to when Chuck Palahniuk wrote Pygmy entirely in broken English. It’s a fun idea, but in the end you’re just annoying your readers.

That’s how I feel with Midnight’s Children. Annoyed. I don’t need some self-aware narrator discussing the virtues of appropriate novel pacing in the midst of a novel that’s purposefully slower than a syrup grand prix.

I’m going to stick with it (ha.) and try to see this thing through to the end. There are some people who think Rushdie is fantastic, and hopefully I’ll see what they see.