Like when you're served a brilliantly plated meal – that you know you're going to enjoy, but want to squeeze out every last drop of pleasure, sit mesmerized for a minute, pondering your game plan. Do you just chalk off some time: a full day, a few hours, to gobble, letting the quantity of words fill you as you walk around the rest of the day, self-conscious of your pores reeking alliteration? Or do you delicately partake, as if written word were Italian black truffles - best to savour (demanding human restrain for the gossamer promise of true enjoyment) nibbling on essays and novels as you squirrel-like munch your way through?
One downside I see to this method is that you might not ever be swept away by a novel, headoverheals, drunk with love – intoxicated by words. You may never speak about characters to an acquaintance as if they were real people or roll an author's prose around in your mouth like a free hard candy from a Diner or that rock you just can't seem to dislodge from your favorite pair of flip flops. You may never achieve that "all together coloured instant" a la EE Cummings of literary bliss where the world fades away like the voice on the other end of your cell phone at the passing overhead of a landing plane, and the world seems populated by only two, yourself and these living words.
However, that style can also be ephemeral, like that mystical hour of a summer's night when the air falls to 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit leaving little to distinguish where your body stops and the world begins and you could just drift away in the scented sea of jasmine. But the next day you wake up and struggle to remember that feeling. Like eating cotton candy, it's gone before you can cement its memory. If you restrain yourself, limit to a chapter a day – you don't have to say goodbye to that dear friend so soon. Your relationship is drawn out, take it slow, learn the thrill of simply holding hands. You can ponder allusions and decipher similes, all the while sipping slow and letting those words plunk plunk plunk into your pail at a chilly molasses' pace.
So where does this leave us - Readers and eaters alike? I guess we must let the cuisine decide for us. Like, if there's anything with carbohydrates where their very matter are altered based on temperature (i.e. tortillas, rice, chapatis) I will be partaking with gusto. It's GRACE! then I'm diving in. There is no way I'm letting art like that go to waste because I was pussy-footing around trying to be polite. Fresh food's justice is that it be eaten immédiatement! Whereas if there's a glass of vino involved and a platter of jeweled cheeses and fruit – the smaller the bites and the more interspersed the sips, the better the color palate blends together to create a stunning canvas.
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