I could feel it coming for a while. My progress was slowing. Each page was becoming a mini-marathon in itself. I was forcing myself to pick it up again. And then, halfway through p. 283 in the Penguin Classics edition, I realised I didn’t have to do this any longer. I don’t have to pour another 60 hours into finishing this brick. I can just let it go.

So I just let it go.

It’s not that it’s an undeserving book. I understand why it’s so important. Indeed, I didn’t realise how astute Dickens is, I didn’t realise his knack for catching personality and mood.

It’s probably just that I’m a bad reader. I’m impatient. I like narrative drive. DC  has little narrative drive. It ambles, it meanders.

Plus I’m having vision problems which make reading either a page or a computer screen difficult.