No. 213 - Okapi

I'm reading The Passage by Justin Cronin mentioned in Post No. 159. It's over 750 pages long and I'm fairly certain that it's going to be enjoyable to read, and will likely teach me lots of new things.

Over the last year I've come to realize that I really enjoy reading books with more than 700 pages. The last two that come to mind are The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, the subject of Post No. 47, and Under the Dome by Stephen King, which was alluded to in Post No. 16.

I think the difference comes down to commitment. Take the short story as an example. My mom and I are still reading a story a week from If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This by Robin Black, mentioned in Post No. 142. Neither of us like the stories very much. Maybe you get out of it what you put in to it? There's not much commitment to a short story, usually under an hour of reading. Books that average 300-400 pages commit you more -- perhaps they take a few days or weeks depending on your reading habits.

Books over 700 pages long are a whole different animal. I don't just pick up a book like that and start nonchalantly reading it. The physical size and weight of it demands that you give it a different kind of respect. I have to get myself ready, like preparing for a big game. This isn't a sprint. This is a marathon. The commitment is different. I think you are forced to become more involved in the story and in the characters.

Speaking of animals, it brings me to what I learned today.

On page 102 of The Passage it was written:

It had started with the bears, whose movements had grown more and more frantic until Lacey had pulled Amy away from the glass, and then, behind them, the sea lions, who began to hurl themselves in and out of the water with manic fury; and as they turned and dashed back toward the zoo's center, the grassland animals, the gazelles and zebras and okapis and giraffes, who broke into wild circles, running and charging the fences.

I learned that the okapi (pronounced oh-COP-ee) is an animal that looks sort of like a zebra, but is more closely related to, and is the only living relative of, the giraffe. The okapi has a body resembling that of a horse. It's chocolate-brown in color, with creamy white horizontal stripes on the legs and hindquarters and white stockings on the ankles. The most giraffe-like feature of the okapi is the long black tongue which is used for plucking buds, leaves, and branches from trees and shrubs as well as for grooming. In addition, the walking gait of the okapi closely resembles that of a giraffe. The okapi's natural habitat is the rain forests of the Congo region of central Africa.