I am one of those people who feels a compulsion to finish everything I start. Books once begun cannot be abandoned after 50 pages, no matter how dull. My plate must be cleared before I get up from the table. Every online course joined in a fit of enthusiasm must be seen through to the bitter end. Children given birth to must be raised. There is no escape for the diligent and the dutiful.
But why isn’t there? With the possible exception of raising your children, who would care if most things weren’t seen through to the end? The answer is me, I’d care. I’m the one pushing myself to finish impossible books and sit through grim but improving films. I think one of the reasons I do it is the belief that if I do wade through Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children or Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, then I’ll be rewarded with shiny nuggets of wisdom and deep insights into life and death. In fact, I usually get to the end none the wiser, but filled instead with a great sense of relief that it’s over and the hollow satisfaction of knowing that I finish what I start. I suppose it has a lot to do with early training and self-image, but I’m starting to think that I could be doing better things with my time than watching Orson Welles obsessing over a sled.
One of those things might not be reading Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. In my view the book is pretty much unreadable, but nevertheless I am ploughing my way through it at the rate of 20 pages a day. Even Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, who made the film A Cock and Bull Story based on the book, admitted that they’d never read it. It was written in 1759 and is barely a story, more an endless series of digressions. I quite enjoy its randomness, but the language is certainly challenging and Sterne mentions so many writers, philosophers, poets and clerics that I find myself reeling from the onslaught. He also spends an awful lot of time discussing military fortifications. All this is taking place while an unfortunate woman is labouring upstairs to give birth to Tristram himself. Why do I continue, you ask? I am dimly aware that it’s brilliant, and it is also wonderfully silly and quite entertaining. Mostly I can’t stop because it has been one of my life’s ambitions to read this book. And the bragging rights will be amazing.
I obviously need to have a word with myself. As I see it I have two options: either I need to be much more selective about what I start, or I need to ignore that nagging voice in my head that won’t let me leave anything unfinished, no matter how unfulfilling or time-wasting it might be. Maybe I should shelve those plans to read the complete works of Shakespeare?
Hmm, maybe this is where I have been going wrong. I need to complete more things that I start but I get distracted so easily. The decluttering of the spare room should have been completed by now, weeks ago in fact, but as I scan in family photos & documents as part of the process I get distracted back into researching the family tree and that in turn leads me on to other stuff not related to decluttering! But thanks for giving me a breakdown of “The Life … of Tristram Shandy” – now I definitely don’t need to read it – not that it was on my list.
I think I’m providing a public service.
Congratulations, Sheridan, for setting very high standards. You’re a good role model for us all, particularly for children, whether yours or anybody’s.
I don’t think my children would agree!