I’ve read about readers who like to slow down as they come to the end of beloved novels – they don’t want them to end, because they want to live in the imagined world a little longer.
I understand the motivation – I sometimes want to stretch May and June out, so we can spend more time making music at the peak of the school year.
But as a reader, my tendency has always been towards late nights finishing novels. I can’t count the number of times I’ve blown past my normal bedtime by hours because I got engrossed in a book.
And more recently, I’ve found myself wanting to do just that, but being unable to. Especially in the wake of having kids and becoming a very early riser, I’ve found the demands on my time, combined with my lack of late-night stamina, stop me from finishing books. In other words, I can remember multiple times recently when I’ve stopped reading just ten pages from the end of a great book.
All this is to say – there’s no wrong way to experience art. Fast, slow, all at once or broken up. The important thing is to dig in and experience it.
But I will also admit that in real life, there’s no way to slow down the end in the way some do while reading. I warn my students in September, “It’ll be June tomorrow.” And they don’t believe me, until suddenly it’s April. Life moves the speed it moves, and it gets ever faster.