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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Putting a Good Book Down

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08:46 / 01.02.03

After around three months of struggle, I have finally given up on a book and put it back on my shelf, less than half read. And I feel guilty; partly because I think books should be finished once started (if you don't see the whole picture, how do you know you don't like the book? You may miss out) but mostly, in this case, because I know the author. The book in question is Justina Robson's Mappa Mundi. This is the second novel of hers to be nominated for the Arthur C Clarke sf fiction award, so she has a good cv. She's also a fab woman. I started off liking the book, amazingly so. I found the writing very different in style to what I was used to. The closest description I can use is that it's very feminine. And then the science fiction reared its head and every time I think I can visualise what's going on, something happens that blurs the image or changes wht I thought was going on. It's not Robson's writing - she's very good, and I have mucho respect for her - it's me and sf. The only time this has ever happened before was with William Gibson's Neuromancer, which I stuck with and finished, but could never 'see' unfolding in front of me. So, while Robson is in good company, and I shouldn't feel like an idiot for not understanding everything in the world, I do want to find a way to finish this book.

Any tips? Do any of you have this problem and if so, do you not worry about it, give the damn thing away, or just go back to it another time? I feel like a traitor!

12:47 / 01.02.03

I can't seem to finish Ulysses, despite the best efforts of barbeloids and the existence of a book-discussion--when? about a year ago?--and I wanted to finish it. but i didn't. couldn't. still can't, apparently.

sfd: the guilt NEVER goes away.

heh heh.
alas!

13:39 / 01.02.03

It only bothers me when it's an author I already like. I was disappointed with the last book in Robin Hobb's Liveship trilogy, but I had to read it just for the sense of completion - primarily the same reason that I read the Preludes to Dune and Orson Scott Card's Shadow series. The same reason I will go to see Star Wars: Episode 3. But frankly, if a book doesn't grab you by the throat and force you to read the whole thing, then why waste time? It's not supposed to be textual torture. And, yes, you can always go back to it another time - that's worked great for me. I didn't like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas the first time I read it. I gave up on the first Iain M. Banks book I ever read. But when I finally read Fear and Loathing... it became one of my favourite books for ages. And Iain M. Banks is still one of my favourite writers.

I wouldn't beat yourself up over it. A musical comparison - I tried to like Tom Waits, I really tried. But I couldn't, even though it's a generally accepted fact that the man is a genius. People are different...people like different things, connect with different things. And it's not like Justina Robson is calling you daily to find out what you thought of her book.

22:44 / 01.02.03

I'm going through the same problem at the moment. I'm reading the Satanic Verses, which I have owned for at least 4 years and tried to read (I think) 3 times, and I just can't seem to want to finish it. I have got other Salman Rushdie books, read them and loved them, but this one just seems too much for my head.

I have made it over halfway though, which is FAR better than previous attempts, so I'm gonna persevere. I think I'm gonna have to rely on the sense of accomplishment of finally beating this book, to get me through it.

So I say, just keep going. You'll feel better for it, even if you end up hating the book...

00:35 / 02.02.03

The Brothers Karamazov is sitting on the floor of my bathroom, all of ten pages turned, while I'm reading trashy Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels. (I found a bag of old paperbacks from my highschool bookstore job including, but not limited to, some of the L.J. Smith: Nightworld young adult novels.)

So I could be reading Dostoyevsky, but I'm reading vampire just-shy-of-porn instead. It's like I've regressed to fourteen.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

01:25 / 02.02.03

I'm having problems with Dhalgren - it's not the style, it's not the content, it's the sheer size of the thing. It's written in the style of a short book (if there is such a thing), it's just that it's about 1000 pages.

btw, sfd, I read Robson's first, "Silver Screen", and loved it. I'll have to check out MM.

05:27 / 02.02.03

Cholister: Why were you disappointed with the third Liveship book? And did you read the Assassin trilogy, or the Tawny Man's first volume? Which do you like the best?

06:41 / 02.02.03

Books like Gravity's Rainbow and The Brothers Karamazov I just had to put down for a few weeks, read some Terry Pratchett or some light nonsense, and then get back into it.
The exception in the last few months was Moorecock's The Laughter of Carthage which I got 300 pages in, and couldn't convince myself to get through the other 300. It was funny, but it just became unappetizing to pick up. It's back in the library, and hopefully I'll finish it one day.

08:16 / 02.02.03

straylight: this thread probably answers most of your questions, I'd rather not threadrot this one too much. I liked the Farseer trilogy best, easily.

12:13 / 02.02.03

I gave up on the first Iain M. Banks book I ever read.

Ebarrassingly enough, I did too - got 'Use of Weapons' out of the library when I was quite young and found it really heavy going and somewhat lacking in Sci-Fi blockbuster satisfaction (which is odd, as it clearly isn't). Of course, when I went back to it a few years later I found it superb..

Confession: I've still got a copy of 'Feersum Enjin' which I've never bothered to read past about the first ten pages. The fact I'd had it for about 3 years before I realised the title was 'fearsome engine' and not just some made up words tells you something about how frustrating I found the whole phonetic writing thing..

12:35 / 02.02.03

Yup, I do this toooo often as well. Still struggling with Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer, for instance, after more than a decade, and Rothkoid ripped through it at one sitting practically.

However, there are others which I've started two or three times over until that one time I was ripe for it. Dune took umpteen attempts to get into and since then I've read every near-impenetrable sequel and formulaic prequel. And have re-read it several times.

I should exult in discovering something new, cracking the spine for the first time, but Ganesh says I'm a hobbit in that way. I just don't. Which is the glory of somewhere like Waterstone's. You can take the time to read some before you purchase. Had read half of Northern Lights before I finally decided to get into His Dark Materials and front up some dosh for the pleasure.

Part of the problem, for me, is that I get into the groove with a particular author, tune into that genre or writing style, and could weep when I finish a goodie. So I revisit the entire oeuvre of that writer (doing Le Guin at the moment, having made fruitless attempts many previous times, to get into Earthsea stuff) until I'm sated or I'm ploughing through all the opportunistically marketed juvenilia. Then I begin to crave a change of rhythm and may go through several opening chapters until something fresh hooks me. Thus, have a pile of options accumulating for when the wind changes next, many titles recommended by you fine barbelous critics.

13:50 / 02.02.03

Know what you mean, Rizla...Feersum Endjinn, well, I read it, and I think it's probably the only phonetically-written book I'll ever read (Clockwork Orange? I think not). I actually liked it though, once I got used to the language - Bascule is a cool character, and the technology and ideas are interesting, as always. Consider Phlebas was the first Iain M. Banks book I ever tried to read - not one of my favourites even now...

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:13 / 02.02.03

Ulysees and Our Lady of the Flowers ar e the two I can rememmber not finishing off the top of my head, though I know there were others. There was a book on the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan which I'm comfortable with because I thought it was a historical recounting and it turned out to be more some university thesis on some sort of theory of mass mobilisation or something.

I do feel a bit guilty if I give up on something, I suppose I do take the importance of books seriously so feel I've let myself down of the chance to learn something, I tend to dump books if I don't understand what's going on, but persevere if they're just boring (which explains why I read all the way through House of Leaves without enjoying a page).

16:22 / 02.02.03

I'm trying to think of how many films I've walked out of before the end, or albums I've turned off before hearing all the way through, as some kind of comparison. It just seems different with books. Cholister - I'm sure you're right in that Justina Robson is unlikely to be wringing her hands wondering whether or not I like her work (and I would certainly recommend you get hold of MM, Stoatie), I think I'm just a bit disappointed in myself for not getting it. When I was at school I made the mistake of choosing Horatio Hornblower to read, and it was so screamingly boring I think that's when I first considered suicide, so I skimmed through it and felt no guilt there.

It's been counter productive for me to try and get through Mappa Mundi. I don't get to read much at the moment anyway, due to writing, but it's been easier to switch the tv on than pick up the book. I've decided I will return to it if I can find someone else who's read it - they might be able to explain the concept to me. I could always get in touch with the author, of course, but I'll feel silly, so I won't.

18:51 / 02.02.03

Cholister: Thanks for the link. I have too many Robin Hobb comments for an old thread, but I've just realized the second Tawny Man book isn't out here yet, so I'd be biting my tongue anyway. I'm just glad to see she has admirers around these parts.

As for Iain M. Banks, Feersum Endjinn was his first book that I read, and I adored it, phonetic difficulties aside. I'm hit or miss with the rest of his stuff, though: loved The Bridge and The Wasp Factory, couldn't get more than a few pages into A Song of Stone or Excession. There's a huge pile of Banks somewhere in my room waiting to be read.

The last thing I gave up utterly on was Marge Piercy's City of Darkness, City of Light. Massive historical fiction about the French Revolution, six main characters with alternating chapters. Trying to read that while living in a hostel was an utter impossibility.

Constitution Hill

21:34 / 02.02.03

I'm having the same problem with Dhalgren as the Chairman, but the real bugbear for me is David Foster Wallace's Broom of the System which i've started a fair few more times than thrice, and never get more than halfway.

One day, though.

One day.

23:53 / 02.02.03

I don't really feel all that guilty about putting books down in the middle of reading them since I usually do get around to finishing them, even if it's years later. I have a copy of Terry Goodkind's Pillars of Creation sitting here, I'm about 115 pages in and I really feel no guilt that I probably won't be finishing it anytime soon. I love Goodkind, rape fetish and all, but this book just doesn't do anything for me. The fact that I have Robin Hobb's third liveship traders book and the second tawny man book sitting here in my to read pile probably doesn't help the situation any. I know I have another book or three that're half read sitting on my shelf, or in my closet or under the bed, but I just don't feel any overriding need to hunt them down and finish them. I'll eventually come across them, see I'm halfway through, sit down and finish them.

If you really feel the need to finish a book, I suggest reading it in conjunction with a book that suits your tastes better. You know, for every chapter or two you read in the book you want to read, read a few pages or a chapter in the book you feel obligated to finish. That's what I'm doing right now. For every few chapters of The Scar I read, I read a chapter in The Joys of Motherhood for my African literature class.

gentleman loser

02:26 / 03.02.03

I've given up twice on Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. Too long. Too rambling. Too depressing. HST is far better in smaller chunks.

Trying to read Gravity's Rainbow again would be my idea of endless hell. I'd rather have demons stab me with red hot pokers for all eternity.

You shouldn't lose any sleep over not finishing a book that you wanted to read for personal interest or for fun. The whole "everyone insists it's genius so it must be" thing is rubbish anyway. Life's too short. Like relationships, sometime things just don't work out; often on matters of personal taste.

10:21 / 03.02.03

I don't think I could ever give up on a book once I've gotten a fair way into it. If the first few pages are rubbish then maybe, but otherwise no. Mostly because I live in fear of the social awkward situation which could result when someone asks you if you've read something or other, and you have to answer "yes and no, but ..." I need closure!

I think there's definitely more pressure if something's considered to be worthwhile by others, whether by academia or your friends, and I think there's something positive about this. I think it's fair to put some effort into something if so many others consider it to be important. Even if you're not enjoying the experience of reading it, there can be many other things to be gained by investigating fully a part of another's culture hoard. And a piece of art is definitely a whole; you need to experience the whole thing. And unless you're reading a ten volume work, it's not that hard to push yourself to the end. Read ten pages a week or something. That's how I got through Finnegans Wake. Which I loathed. But at least now I can name-drop it in Barbelith posts.

The only book I've ever gotten halfway through and not finished is Crime and Punishment, although I'll get there in the end. Unlike Flowers, I find it easier to stick with something if I don't understand it than if it's boring. Weird complex stuff is fine if there's something there to keep the interest, but boring repetitive crap is another story altogether. And I like long-winded repetitive stuff, like Henry James. But C&P is booooooooooooring long-winded repetitive crap.

10:28 / 03.02.03

Oh me, so many unfinished books in the bags on my floor at home... Mr Pye, The Pope's Rhinocerous, Moll Flanders, My Name is Red... tons and tons, how shaming. But I think the only book I have failed to finish several times is Tristram Shandy, which I love but which I have never conquered - though every time I have a bash at it I seem to get a bit further in, so the signs are promising. I'll have finished it when I'm sixty. I think it's because it's hard to be gripped by a book which is essentially one giant shaggy dog story - even if it's a very good shaggy dog story.

11:10 / 03.02.03

I've given up twice on Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. Too long. Too rambling. Too depressing. HST is far better in smaller chunks.

Yeah. There are lengthy sections of that book that will mean absolutely nothing to anyone who isn't living in America in 1972, but, er, well, I find HST's such a good writer he could probably write a 500 page book about his arse and make it entertaining.. so I got through it.

The Return Of Rothkoid

11:45 / 03.02.03

I'm with Loomis. I just can't not finish things. If I've not given up by fifty pages, I have to see it through to the end. Otherwise, it just haunts me. The two things that leap to mind as not having been finished by me yet are Russell's History of Western Philosophy and Maturin's Melmoth The Wanderer. Everything else, I think, I've perservered with.

The Return Of Rothkoid

21:28 / 03.02.03

Ah. I was forgetting Lights Out For The Territory. Fucking thing.

21:58 / 03.02.03

There's only been one: Les Miserables. I read fifty pages, waiting for it to click. Then a hundred, then a hundred and fifty. Then I realized I just didn't like the book at all.

Sometimes I'll give up not so much on single books as series -- couldn't read Titus Alone, Clea, or the second volume of Man Without Qualities. You're quite right in that there's a palpable sense of guilt -- or worse, shame. I give up on authors all the time. I've tried three or four times to like Martin Amis but my god, there are so many far finer things I'll die without reading, how can justify keeping at the bugger?

(Is that a proper use of 'bugger'?)

21:18 / 04.02.03

And then there are all the books sitting on your bookshelves, in libraries and bookshops that look kind of interesting but you will never read. The books are laughing at you. This is like the opening of 'if on a winter's night a traveller'. There are books that will remain wholely are partially unread in your life. let it go.

The Return Of Rothkoid

23:13 / 04.02.03

Nup. Not at all. Way before I did it at uni - pretty much from the time I learned to read - I have had a passion for reading. And as such, it's driven me on, makes me feel guilty - as if I'm not reading enough - and will continue to bug me. It's overwhelming to think that there's that much good stuff in the world that I won't get to read - it's like the knowledge that there's perhaps the defining book just around the corner that you may never get to see. Part collector's lust, part raw stupidity, but I ain't letting go of it because it's what makes those moments where you stumble across copies of things you've been looking for for years all that much sweeter.

So, I try never to fail in reading one. Do. Or do not. There is no try.

10:38 / 05.02.03

Interesting thread… for my part, I operate a ‘100 pages, or one-third of the book (whichever is the lower number)’ rule : if it’s not grabbing me by then, I’m out.
There are too many books out there (hell, there are plenty on my shelf) that I want to read and will also enjoy reading for me to waste my time on ones I’m not getting something from.
And if someone asks me (for example) “have you read Sartre’s ‘Nausea’?” I feel fully entitles to answer “Only 100 pages of it, and it didn’t work for me”, and then to explain why. Which is a valid opinion, after all, as long as my reasons are ones based more on the content than any residual annoyance at having spent time on the bit I did read, right ?
Intrigued by the suggestions that people feel compelled to finish books, or guilty if they don’t … where do these feelings come from ? Childhood ? Academia ? Parents ? Or oneself ?

13:51 / 05.02.03

DBC - been thinking about this. Probably just a feeling that books are 'good'. I think it might actually also relate to my life long worry that I couldn't finish a book because I'm not 'clever' enough.

14:23 / 05.02.03

I read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, and liked it. I haven't liked everything I've read by HST though, The Great Shark Hunt didn't have that much good stuff in it, and The Proud Highway is just not the sort of thing that would grab me.

DBC: There are too many books out there (hell, there are plenty on my shelf) that I want to read and will also enjoy reading for me to waste my time on ones I’m not getting something from.

I'd agree wholeheartedly with that.

14:28 / 05.02.03

I have forced myself to read things though. Tim Lott's White City Blue was hurled across the room in mid-book, and I forced myself to finish that one. Robert Matheson's I am Legend struck me as somewhat misogynist and the tone really bothered me - I only finished it because there was a dog in it for a little while. And I found American Psycho the hardest book ever to read - I gave up the first time round, coming back to it years later.

20:32 / 05.02.03

Don Quixote has been on the go for five years now. It is going to happen. Is it worth it?

The Return Of Rothkoid

21:01 / 05.02.03

Tim Lott's White City Blue was hurled across the room in mid-book, and I forced myself to finish that one.

Said it before, will say it again: I was sorely tempted to burn my copy of The Illuminatus Trilogy before I finished it. But I perservered. And threw it across the motherfuckin' room when I finally finished it...

22:06 / 06.02.03

I've actually read all of Tristram Shandy, and it is a big grey shaggy dog book, and one that I enjoyed far more after I'd read it than whilst reading.

Never finished Brothers Karamozov (school started again the summer I started and it got set aside) nor did I finish Bleak House.

They laugh at me today, along with all those garage sale books, and even a couple of brand new hardcover books I got extremely excited about and then NEVER BOTHERED to read. AAArrgh. It was so embarrassing when they came out in paperback form and I still hadn't even cracked their covers. I've promised myself: never again.

alas

09:24 / 07.02.03

I've just remembered that I gave up on David Icke's book, The Truth Vibrations. Not because it was a bad read - it was great fun - but because it seemed cruel to carry on, like hanging around at a traffic accident.

10:33 / 07.02.03

I've given up on a few books recently. I seem to have got into the situation Persephone was in a few months ago, where I just can't read anything. I'm plodding through The return of the king and it's okay but I just can't get myself to sit down and get into it, or anything else. I'll try to get to the end but no promises...

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