The aftermath

In the end, the journey to Buffalo was easier than I had thought. Too easy. There was no rush hour traffic going to the airport, we had no trouble finding parking, and we sailed through security. It was eerie, to say the least. See? This is what happens when you obsess about how painful something will be: it isn't painful. Gotta love it.

My trip to Buffalo also served as a last-ditch effort to get through Watership Down, by Richard Adams. My friend, T, lent me this book about three years ago as it was one of her favorites growing up, but I couldn't get past the first ten pages. Well, folks, after two days and three nights, I'm only on page 175. For a person who routinely reads several books per weekend, this is an extremely slow pace.

So why the trouble? I think maybe because the plot (or what there is of one) hasn't grabbed me. Sure, there are a group of rabbits who leave a warren they deem unsafe to start a new one elsewhere. And there's danger. And they have adventures. But what's the story? I was discussing this with a high school friend of mine over brunch today, and he said, "This sounds like one of those books that's really an allegory. I bet the book is really about evil WWII-era companies. I'm not saying that for any reason, it's just what I think." Well, according to Wikipedia, he's scarily close: Watership Down is apparently about "fascism and appeasement." I'm fairly certain I hadn't reached the F&A storyline yet, but it isn't quite enough to make me read on. It isn't often that I can't bulldoze my way through a book, even if I'm not enjoying it. But I think three years is long enough to try, especially considering the teetering stack of books I have here next to me, waiting to be loved. And anyway, my book-as-allegory muscle has atrophied.