A Scary Fantasy

Considering the actual number of hours spent, which has given you more comparable pleasure in your life? Film or literature?

I love both and have trouble imagining my life without either. But after wasting two hours last night on another mediocre movie, I was annoyed. Had I been in the middle of a great book right now, the question posed above would not have occurred to me. But the novel I'm reading is about 350 pages. At minimum, that represents about seven hours of my time. Despite its award winning status, unless something shifts radically, the novel falls solidly into the "OK" category, like that two hour movie.

Am I coming down on the lowbrow side and answering my question on the side of film? More analysis is required. But I am clearly re-considering an old story I've told myself about what a waste of time it is re-watching pleasurable films. Since I've justified re-reading books that have taken (on average) three times as long to read as most films last, claiming to be above re-watching "Tootsie" is pretentious hogwash. Time to throw that story away and grab "Out of Africa" the next time I'm at the library.

Anyway, although it is a scary fantasy, a better question to ask might be: If you are a bookworm and film buff like me, what would you do with the hours you spend doing both if suddenly you could not?