Vicarious living through novels

So I'm almost done with Life of Pi, a book that took me a while to get through. Initially, I found the protagonist obnoxious and found the first 100 pages a rough going. I've put that book back on the shelf, literally, about 3 times during that time and this last time I restarted it from the beginning, so as to look at it in a new light as well as have a more fluid lead-up to the point where I'd read to. It proved worth it as I finally delved into the book with a fresh perspective.

There are some books that are like that, the book that I finished before this one was Pygmy, a book written by someone that grew up with a Far East linguistic approach that was applied to English, and so the writing was, at times, tedious to decipher. This book was far more straightforward and what I immediately liked about it was the rich, dense prose, a staple of mine and writers that inspire me. He's also very philosophical, something that I've enjoyed since I was a teen. What turned me off, in the beginning, was the slow start, midway through the plot takes off and carried me to the point where I can't wait to find out what's going to happen next, when will he be rescued, how, how will he react ... there are lots of questions swirling about my noggin.

What I found myself thinking today as I rode the J train was how involved I feel in the book, as I read about his horrid suffering I can't help but feel it, really feel it. It reminded me of when I was reading Shantaram, of the protagonist and how he would pick at lice all day in an overcrowded Indian prison, of his bouts with heroin and opium, of the hardships of living in a slum in Bombay ... all these things I could feel, not just see with my mind's eye.

I took a break from reading, from writing, from that aspect of myself because I felt saturated in it, like a glutton walking away from a feast. As I begin to enjoy a good novel, as I begin to write again it's inspiring to not just read great literature again, but to immerse myself in the Pacific waters of it.