Bookmarks

 

I saw this image on Facebook today, and I tried to decide where I land on this chart.

It's kind of a silly chart, because there is a time and a place for each of those methods.  Only catalogs get the Chaotic Evil method, since once I'm done with it, it will be headed for the trash.  Folding a page in a "real book" is definitely evil!  When I refill my coffee, I might use the face down method, but only for a short period of time - not long enough to have a permanent impact.  

Tucking anything in to mark a page is fine; I think that the item used is more a matter of proximity than of choice, good or bad.  I'd use a proper bookmark if I had one handy, but I'm more likely to find a scrap of paper!

What really got me thinking, though, was the Lawful Evil method.  I think I'm "lawful evil". but it's more complex than that.  Typically when I put a book down, I don't mark my place.  I've tried memorizing page numbers, but then I mix them up, and still have to search.  But really, the search is part of the process.

When I return to a book, it's actually a wonderful greeting to start at the beginning.  I flip through slowly, absorbing a sentence here and there, reminding myself of the characters and the places.  I see the happenings, and let them float through my memory.  Perhaps I know I read that section, but don't really remember - and I'll pick up there, rather than at the "proper bookmark" place.  Maybe I'll reread a page or so, just because I enjoyed that section, and then continue flipping forward.  

Eventually, I get to the place where I left off.  I resume reading, my memories refreshed, ready to see what happens next.  And when I finish the book, I'm likely to take one last stroll through, seeing how the pieces added up to get to the conclusion,  Reading a good book isn't a race to a finish line, it's a ramble though the paths of the characters lives, and the perspective of knowing how it turns out sometimes makes the earlier passages more meaningful.