'After-read void'

[kandaurov]

Sorry if this sounds weird, and double sorry if this is a repost.

I would like to know if anyone feels the 'after-read void' that so assails me after a good book. Once I read the last line, I search for a hidden appendix or something of the sort. Then I accept that it is over. I shut the book and just gaze at nothing, think about nothing, just let the last bits of text sink in. Then I don't feel in a mood for anything else for some minutes.

It's like the book had created a necessity, and then, all of a sudden, just ceased to saciate it. Like watching, in awe, wonderful fireworks go off for a fleeting eternity, only to end, like all things do, and leave the sky seeminlgy darker than it was before.

I was just wondering, do you ever feel like this? Which book(/film) has most instilled in you a melancholy feeling afterwards, in which you, lethargically, do nothing but absorb information and sentiment?

[andave_ya]

yeah, decidedly. Probably for both film and book it would be Lord of the Rings. I hate it when it ends! All I can think about is Boromir and Aragorn and Frodo and Sam and Galadriel and all those lovely people.

[motherhubbard]

I always feel that way after reading my favorite books, The Good Earth and The Grapes of Wrath in particular. Even if I know that I’m going to start over again as soon as I finish I dread the end. I binge on these two books just because I hate the thought of actually reaching conclusion I know and desire.

[manolia]

I have felt this way too. The first time was with LOTR, in a very young age when i read the book for the first time. Recently was "The count of Monte Cristo". Some books create a whole universe and somehow it is difficult to let its characters go and return to reality. It's difficult to accept that they are not real beings.

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Sorry if this sounds weird, and double sorry if this is a repost.

I would like to know if anyone feels the 'after-read void' that so assails me after a good book. Once I read the last line, I search for an hidden appendix or something of the sort. Then I accept that it was over. I shut the book and just gaze at nothing, think about nothing, just let the last bits of text sink in. Then I don't feel in a mood for anything else for some minutes.

It's like the book had created a necessity, and then, all of a sudden, just ceased to saciate it. Like watching, in awe, wonderful fireworks go off for a fleeting eternity, only to end, like all things do, and leave the sky seeminlgy darker than it was before.

I was just wondering, do you ever feel like this? Which book(/film) has most instilled in you a melancholy feeling afterwards, in which you, lethargically, do nothing but absorb information and sentiment?

[nps_marina]

Yes! That has happened to me too, andave. With lots of books... but definitely not with the count of Monte Cristo, manolia!

***SPOILERS FOR THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO NEXT***

I liked it when I read it, but I was going through a very bloodthirsty/revengethirsty time... actually that's why I began the Count, and I didn't like it how, in the end, he spares Mercedes.
Yes, in real life of course you would have spared Mercedes, and many people before her... in real life, whenever we are wronged, we imagine the worst possible scenarios for the people who wrong us. Mainly, that we meet them again in the height of our glory while they are down in the pits of desperation. In our imagination, true forgivenness is not allowed, since after all we know it's just daydreaming. Well, The Count is a novel, it is fiction, it is daydreaming put to paper... and I felt cheated of a daydream, in the end.

;)

***END OF SPOILER***

Mmmh... but it happened to me when I was a teenager with The Belgariad and the Malloreon (fantasy sagas), and then later on with the Pillars of the Earth, and the latest would have been The World According to Garp, probably.

[kathycf]

Some books create a whole universe and somehow it is difficult to let its characters go and return to reality. It's difficult to accept that they are not real beings.
Yes, very true. I often find with most books I read I get this feeling of not wanting it to end, and then getting quiet and contemplative when I do finish. Although, not every book. Sometimes I enjoy a book quite a lot, but it doesn't have the same effect for some reason.

[Niamh]

I hate it when i'm absorbed in a book and it ends! I also start looking for hidden pages in disbelief!

[manolia]

Yes! That has happened to me too, andave. With lots of books... but definitely not with the count of Monte Cristo, manolia!.

Hehe why not? The Count would be an interesting individual to have ,let's say, as a neighbour. You'd be very careful not to displease him of course, for example avoid making noises and be careful that your dog doesn't bark at nights.




I liked it when I read it, but I was going through a very bloodthirsty/revengethirsty time... actually that's why I began the Count, and I didn't like it how, in the end, he spares Mercedes.

At first i was of the same opinion with you (concerning what i wanted her fate to be). But after some further reflection i thought that it is better that way. It points out how superior a being the Count is (the fact that he spares such a forlorn creature as Mercedes) and also that his actions aren't actually his choice but he is somehow the instrument of Providence.

[barbara0207]

Oh yes, that happens to me with every truly exciting book. I read faster and faster because I simply must know how it ends - and when it does I'm disappointed. If there was a happy ending (e.g. Pride and Prejudice) I complain why the author couldn't tell me just how they lived happily ever after, and if it's a sad ending, mostly it's death (e.g. Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks), I cry my eyes out and complain that the author might have thought of something different - knowing perfectly well that in most cases the logic of the novel requires a tragic ending. These tragic endings do, however, not really create a void, but start a process of thinking 'If only ...'.

[kandaurov]

Marina, good thing you issued a spoiler warning, thanks ;) I've bought it some days ago. And coming to think about it: 900 pages... now that's got to leave a huge void!

[SFG75]

I have a thing about not starting a new book the same day that I finish another. I don't know why I have that particular hang-up, but I do. I like to pause a bit and to take stock into what I read as a whole. Different plots, character actions, etc.

[Stieg]

Sampling of books left me stunned and awed were 1984, World War Z, and Dan Simmons' Hyperion.

That last book has many startling and defining moments, the geography and technology of the planet Hyperion, a creature called the Shrike, the mysterious aura of the Time Tombs, and the story narrative similar to the Canterbury Tales in which the characters each share their stories why they are braving peril and the Shrike (muhahaha!) to visit the Time Tombs on Hyperion. Excellent melding of fantasy and science fiction.

I had to stop and absorb what I had just read. Roll it on the tongue per se.

[kandaurov]

1984 was definitely one of my biggest after-read voids too. And SFG, that's just what happens to me as well. Can't disconnect from a novel just like that *snaps fingers*, I must prepare myself during my sleep ;)

And movies, do you feel something of the sort too? It happened to me after Million Dollar Baby, Donnie Darko and Mulholland Dr.

[Countess]

The Portrait of Dorian Gray left a great absence. I fear the day I'm done reading all of Oscar Wilde's plays - then who will make me laugh? Who? WHO?!
With books I tend to empathize and absorb good and/or interesting characters, so when the story ends I feel as if a favorite friend of mine has abandoned me - even with my own writing. When I finished "Jules" I was so glad to be done with writing, and yet extremely melancholy that I was done with Jules himself. On the other hand, when I finished Hanging on a Thread I was so glad to be rid of myself / my own psyche - it was like having a leach sucking my blood - I was sucking out my own soul, and it was such a ghastly thing to see - I can't stand to look upon it.
Which begs the question - for those who write, do you miss your own characters? Do these leave a void as well?

[kandaurov]

Funnily enough, not at all. I'm always glad I needn't brood on them anymore. That, however, may have to do with the fact that none of my characters has ever been any good :p

[Lag866]

With me it sometimes takes days or weeks to get over it. I will search the internet for any sequels, or books remotely like the book I just read. Sometimes it even happens with specific genres. Recently I reread The Riddle-Master by Patricia McKillip, awesome book, and I don't know if anything after will be as good.

[RaatKiRanii]

Ahh..that happened to me after i finished reading "Rebecca." I tried to find something - anything remotely like it, but even when i read something else by the same author it just didn't fill the void. It took me a week before i read another book, but i usually wait that long anyway because i like to linger and ponder over this and that from what I’ve read. It gives me time to absorb and go over the different aspects of the book.

[Takeahnase]

I often find myself walking around in a sort of daze after finishing a book or watching a film ... it's a bizarre feeling! Every now and then I just become so completely absorbed into the story and the setting that the snap back to reality when you close the book comes as such a shock.

I sometimes don't know what to do with myself afterwards because of that 'void'... I'll perhaps not feel like reading again for a while, because I don't want the lasting impression of the previous novel to fade or to be replaced.

Don't you get jealous of people reading, for the first time, a book that you truly enjoyed? Nothing quite beats that first read of a brilliant piece of literature, and the not knowing what's going to happen next...

[Nightshade]

Well Im a bit odd then I guess I rather like feeling you get left with after a good book, like a really good cake almost, Im willing to read 3 books a day just for that one good book I might find a month then Ill go for a few days without reading. Just sort of enjoying playing back the bits I liked in my mind.

Unfortunatly there is the other kind of voids like Im going through now when I cant find anything to read that I dont get bored with within a couple of pages so Im not reading anything and consequently am a grump to be around.

[Pensive]

Yes, I often get this feeling as well.

[SleepyWitch]

yeah, decidedly. Probably for both film and book it would be Lord of the Rings. I hate it when it ends! All I can think about is Boromir and Aragorn and Frodo and Sam and Galadriel and all those lovely people.

me too. the world of LotR feels so real that after reading 1,500 pages of it you feel it could really have existed. when I finished reading it, it felt like this whole world had just died and the elves and Frodo etc. really existed somewhere but would never come back to our world :bawling:

[higley]

Only like with every Narnia book! And along with that hollow void comes an intermingled sort of desperation, that it couldn't possibly be over. Broke my heart. :(

[grace86]

Oh wow I am glad to see I am not alone in this feeling. You have all done really nice in explaining how you feel; not many new explanations for me.

After I finish a book, I get kind of sad and contemplative for a while. I also do not start a new book in the same day I finish one; I feel if I did that, I would be doing an injustice to the previously read. Don't get me wrong, I am always ecstatic at having put another novel into my "done" pile. Sometimes it is just kind of like, "now what do I do?"

Often I recall by memory the favorite passages of finished novels...in otherwords, my daydreams consist of a lot of replaying scenes from my novels.

I rush through about half of a book I read, then I realize I am ending the novel too fast, so I slow down. When it finally ends, I start to think I shouldn't have started reading it so fast.

There aren't many endings of novels I have ever been REALLY satisfied with. Perhaps it is because of the fact that the novel is ending that I feel that way.

[AdoreroDio]

I really only feal that void after the end of a series- it's like I'm so used to reading one book and reaching for the next and when it ends it's like, now what? It usually isn't that way for me if I read a single book because I usually finish it at night time and immediatly go to sleep without much time to think.

[kandaurov]

Ah, good to see all this feedback! AdoreroDio, what you said leads me to another question: are you people mostly night-readers? I haven't the habit of going to bed, read for a while and go to sleep; I just pull the sheets and fall asleep immediately, heh. My favourite time to read is after lunch, I go to a sunny spot and read there :)

[Nossa]

I feel that sometimes too...a certain feeling just goes through me, I can't call it sadness or depression..don't know what it is actually...but it's the feeling you have when you see the sun set...it makes you sad and relieved at the same time...did that make sense? lol

[kenikki]

I felt incredibly underwhelmed the first time I finished the Great Gatsby. It seemed so good in the middle and I thought there is going to be one hell of an ending. I found myself re-reading the ending ten times to make sure I got it. I then too just felt blank. It is a good novel but it is one of the most disappointing things ive read in a long time.

[Nossa]

I felt incredibly underwhelmed the first time I finished the Great Gatsby. It seemed so good in the middle and I thought there is going to be one hell of an ending. I found myself re-reading the ending ten times to make sure I got it. I then too just felt blank. It is a good novel but it is one of the most disappointing things ive read in a long time.

Lol! That happened to me as well..but mostly in some of the Arabic books and novels I read. You get the feeling that there must be some kinda mistake there...maybe he fell asleep and woke up, totally forgetting the story line and just wrote the first thing that came to his mind lol

[kenikki]

That is so true, Nossa! I felt that he could not be bothered to write anymore and just hurried the ending along, hence the haste of Gatsby's death and the quick wrapping up of relationships...lazy ol' Fitzgerald.

[Nossa]

Lazy Fitzgerald:lol: :lol:

[F.Emerald]

Mhm...know that feeling all too well. I agree with 1984 being a major one too. Also practically everything Nabokov has written, even short stories. I think that - as manolia said - it depends on that whole idea of a new world being built around you, and having to go back to reality.
Never get this with films though.

[kenikki]

I think that - as manolia said - it depends on that whole idea of a new world being built around you, and having to go back to reality.Never get this with films though.

I agree as I think with books it takes much more concentration and your imagination than when watching a film everything is there in colour and sound.

[papayahed]

I've only felt like that after reading a few Stephen King books, he goes into such great detail about his characters I kinda miss them when they're gone.