The joys of communal book reading

I *should* be dedicating this post to my brand new toy (a Droid X phone) or to my current knitting projects. But I spare you the gushing over the phone since I've done a fair bit of that on Facebook and Twitter; as for the knitting, I can't show off pictures just yet (still need to take them). So, I'd like to share a funny thing Sylvain said this morning while on the way to school.

His lit class is this year's zero hour class -- it begins at 6:50 am. Their first book assignment is "Girl with a pearl earring." He HATES this book. After last night's knit-in, I looked in on him and found him trying to get through the night's reading assignment and discussion questions. He had the most dejected look on his face.

So, during the drive to school this morning, I tried to make conversation (mistake) and asked if he was ready for this morning's discussion (bigger mistake).

"No....the book sucks. The author sucks," began his rant. "We couldn't possibly have a worse book to start the year with! The author dedicated a page and a half to describing the girl chopping vegetables, but only TWO sentences to her father being injured."

Hmmm. I hadn't read that book before, nor watched the movie, so am at a loss for giving him encouragement that it will get more exciting. Apparently, Sylvain's an action man.

So, I went the "show by example route" and started to tell him about how I'm struggling with my book club's October book: "The painter of battles." It's been a week and I'm only on page 7! Granted, until Theresa found the book wedged between my couch's arm rest and a couch pillow, where it must have been for the past several days...Regardless of that temporary misplacement, I had a hard time getting into the book from the start.

If the look I received from Sylvain was any indication that my experience was getting through to him, I have to confess that he didn't feel any more reassured than before....