The Blog

There’s an old Russian joke that starts with a man asking a woman, “Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?” “Well, maybe,” she says. “How about for twenty?” he asks. “What do you think I am, some kind of prostitute!?” “We’ve already established that,” he says. “Now we’re just haggling over the price.” Those offended by the obvious misogynism can give the woman the lead. That’s not the point.

There's a way in Russian of saying that you've read something without specifying that you've completed it. Think about how nice a distinction that would be to have at one's fingertips! Did you read that book? Yes, I did. (Da, chital, which, I suppose, if you want to get technical, would mean something like, "Yes, I engaged in the activity of reading," without particular reference to one stage of it or another, especially its completion.) Would being able to say that to others and to oneself make it any easier to stop reading something before the end, I wonder? I've often been surprised at the--sometimes quite elaborate--rules people come up with for how much of a book or essay or story they are allowed to read before moving on to something else. Allowed by whom?