The One Hundred Page Test

Ever belong to a book club?  Call me old-fashioned, but I like to talk about books (or even movies) with an eye toward hearing someone talk about what they think/feel on the inside about their content.  People actually talking about what goes on inside them seem so rare these days.  Sure, you can get someone to talk about that game (baseball, basketball, hockey, football, Olympics, etc.) or about a news story, or about a politician’s latest effort to get attention, but to tell what goes on inside them?  Not so much.   

But still I have never been part of a book club.  It is probably a good excuse for a few glasses of wine with friends, so I am wondering why I never founded one myself.   Talking with a couple of friends who belong to one recently, I found you are required to read books chosen by other members.  As my dear wife observes, I don’t like anyone telling me what to do, but…  Listening to the books these two had to read, I asked if the object of the game was to test your willingness to be bored to death; sort of a contest to pick out the most obscure book and author.  That’s when they told me about their one hundred page test.  You just have to read the first hundred pages.  If the book doesn’t engage you in that amount of space, you drop it.  By that time, you have read enough to fake it at the wine fest—I mean book club meeting.  It really set me to thinking…

Where else could we apply that rule?  In family discussions about cell phone use?  What about conversations between husband and wife about who is “doing their share around here?”  I realize that conversations don’t come in pages.  They come in sentences, usually, although I know someone whose sentences run on and on, if you know what I mean.  Maybe we should consider one hundred words.  Yeah, we could use some kind of a word count.  Don’t worry; this will not interfere in any way with my listening and comprehension.  I can multi-task.  But, once I or my significant other reach the one hundred word count, further listening is OPTIONAL. 

But, now that I think about it, we are also going to have to measure frequency.  You can’t permit the lecturing (I mean speaking) party to just rewind the clock and start another word count.  Book clubs read one book a month, but lectures in families occur much more frequently.  Maybe we could try one a day (two for retired couples).  I am liking this idea.  There must be other opportunities, let me see…

Oh, it’s an election year.  Let’s apply this to political speech.  Sure, but what would we count?  The commercials are only 30 seconds long anyway.  But, they are repeated e-n-d-l-e-s-s-l-y.  Would we be able to apply the frequency rule?  How would the candidates spend their half-billion dollar war chest?  Wait, wait…what’s that?  You want to count syllables?