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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Mental block books.

08:57 / 29.09.03

I read lots and lots and I read all different kinds of books, so why, WHY can I not get past the first chapter of either 'Catch 22', or 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin'? Over the years I've tried and tried, I go back to them now and then, determined that this time I will read them all the way through, but I just can't get past the first few pages. There's no logic to why these particular books should have that effect on me, I don't think they have much/anything in common. It's just weird.

Does anyone else have this 'book block' and which books do it to you?

Goodness Gracious Meme

09:27 / 29.09.03

sorry, have no answers to your good questions.

but salman rushdie does this to me. Midnight's Children/Satanic Verses are both notionally about things in which i'm very interested, especially MC. but I can only read a chapter or so before --zzzzzzzzzz

10:26 / 29.09.03

For years, this was Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man for me. I would read to the bottom of the first page and then would be entirely unable to cope with the idea of reading another sentence written in that style. I feared that by the end of the book I'd be rocking back and forth in my chair, wide-eyed, repeating the phrase "it's just babbling... just babbling..." to anyone who'd listen. Then I took it on holiday, ran out of other things to read, was forced to get on with it and rather enjoyed it.

Just now, the book I am completely failing to read is Birdsong. I still feel I should read it after so many people have told me it's good, but... it doesn't seem to be happening. And I have no idea why with this one.

11:14 / 29.09.03

This happens to me all the time. I have umpteen books which I have started and not finished - some of them many times (e.g. Tristram Shandy, which I have begun at least four times and never finished, though every time I get slightly further on so I am in hopes that I will manage to finish it at some point).

The most recent persistent offender was The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but I broke the block somehow and really enjoyed it. If only the same thing would happen with Middlemarch.

I think it is perhaps just a questions of finding the moment when you can key into a book; maybe I need to grow up a bit before I can get on with Middlemarch; maybe my head was too stuffed up with history to cope with Murakami earlier this year (seems unlikely, I know, given that I could plough through Dickens easily enough, but you never know...). Or maybe sometimes one comes to a book too late to really enjoy it (suspect this has happened to me with I Capture the Castle, which is a shame...).

11:45 / 29.09.03

Ditto on the Tristram Shandy, Kit-Cat. This time (I think my fourth foray into it) I progressed pretty rapidly through the first hundred or so pages (ignoring end-notes, which pained me to no end), and after I started getting into the rhythym of it, it went swimmingly and I had high hopes for finishing it. Alas, I've stalled around page 300, but I hope to pick it up again this week while my memory is still relatively fresh, and finish the bloody thing off.

The other book that bedevils me in a similar way is The Adventures of Augie March, though I'm not really inclined to go back to that one any more, since I've read some shorter Bellow and found it more to my liking.

15:08 / 29.09.03

I have never been able to read Tristram Shandy, either. I fall asleep. I figured out why, though. Also why I had so much trouble with Ulysses, but not Portrait. I have to have narrative. Narrative is the engine. I figured this out recently, **crossover alert** when we recently started renting The Prisoner, which is really stylish and cool & in many ways strikes me as a poem, rather than as a story? I have never stayed awake during a single episode yet. I'm actually aware of my brain shutting down; it's like lights being turned off. And actually related, I also blacked out intermittently during My Own Private Idaho --which is really funny, considering that River Phoenix's character was a narcoleptic. But I still watch The Prisoner anyway, because I actually like bits of it a lot & let's face it, for an insomniac, any sleeping aid is a godsend.

But I try not to force myself to read anything anymore. That causes problems.

Foust is SO authentic

15:40 / 29.09.03

Why on earth would you force yourself to a read a book? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose? Do you really want to live your lives as English students, being forced to read?

15:40 / 29.09.03

Very wise Persephone. I also have a few of the buggers which I can't get into. I find the particulary to be true of the classics - it took me forever and a day to read Metamorphosis and I have a copy of Herodotus's Histories which is staring down at me accusingly. I think sometimes this happens when the first flush of the enthusiasm following a new purchase is gone and it's just lurking up there on the shelf. Strike while the iron is hot and all that. Interesting though the chains of association like this - pleasure/displeasure - that we build into books.

15:59 / 29.09.03

Tristram Shandy's like that. It wasn't helped by the fact that I foolishly (given I knew about it) hoped it would go somewhere, so every time I reached the end of a chapter it was highly frustrating, but the act of having read it was quite pleasant with hindsight. I nearly tore the thing up when i finished it, so frustrating was the fact that it's a 600-page shaggy dog story. But it was rather fun, when you've got the hindsight - as though you needed to laugh at yourself for having read it.

My top tip for reading TS is: as fast as you can, set rates. Just try and do 100 pages a day, rip through them. It's the only way to cope - and it's much better after you've read it. The process isn't great, the results are.

Wind-Up-Bird Chronicle was a reverse block for me: I began fine, but it got more and more drawn out. I actually, embarassingly, gave up sixty pages from the end. I didn't mean to, I'd just got to there, but every time I tried to read on I just lost any desire to. One of the very few unfinished books I own. Ah well.

At the moment, Alain Robbe-Grillets Les Gommes (The Erasers) is blocking me like mad.

16:10 / 29.09.03

Why on earth would you force yourself to a read a book?

Guilt and feelings of inadequacy, of course! I speak only for myself.

Interesting though the chains of association like this - pleasure/displeasure - that we build into books.

Yes, very. The thing that I'm doing now is only reading what I feel like, when I feel like it. For a long time before, I was reading through the University of Wisconsin MA and prelim reading lists. Some of it made me want to tear out my eyes. Anyway. It's very interesting to just listen to yourself, read what you like --even though you don't know why you like it, even though it seems totally miscellaneous-- and then see the patterns emerging. Like a self-created syllabus.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

16:42 / 29.09.03

Olulabelle - Corelli is my current contender for 'most overrated novel'. LdB's previous books are vastly more interesting. If you really want to read that one, I'd start by getting up some enthusiasm with "The War of Don Emmanuel's Netherparts" and see where it gets you. But otherwise, just skip it and nod sagely when anyone brings the book up. That's what I always do. I find it impenetrable where the others are blinding and magnetic.

19:06 / 29.09.03

I sort of felt I had some sort of duty to attempt 'Prozac Nation', but had to keep stopping to throw it at the wall. Never did get further than about a third of the way in...

09:19 / 30.09.03

I struggled with, and eventually gave up on, Naked Lunch, Nausea and Tropic of Cancer, and whilst I guess that thematically they're kind of about amoral-ish young chaps shagging and being generally down, the styles were different enough that I can't quite nail it.

It was at this time that I developed my 100/one-third rule, which yes, means that if I'm not feeling some kind of benefit or genuine interest or whatever by page 100, or one-third of the total page count (whichever is the smaller, no need to prolong the agony), then I'll bail out.

I'm sure I'm missing some good stuff with this rather arbitrary scheme, but there are so many books on my shelves that I'm keen to read (and ones which are on shelves elsewhere in the world awaiting transfer to mine, it's only a matter of time and money) that I don't want to waste the time not-enjoying others.

And Nick's comment about Captain Corelli reminds me of the Chris Morris Blue Jam intro which goes something along the lines of "When talk with friends, and it all turns into [adopts mocking voice] 'Captain Corelli', 'Captain Corelli', 'Captain Corelli'...", in which he says the name so stupidly that it's now made it impossible for me to hear the words in my head in any other way...

11:43 / 03.10.03

I generally don't suffer from this, and when I do it's generally non-fiction books I can't start up.
Right now, however, Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath is impossible to pick up. One chapter, at the most. Which is strange, as I've read alot of his other fiction, which was both easy to read and enjoyable..

A rather common book-block has to be Lord of the Rings, right? Almost everyone I've discussed with either says the first 100 pages or so are extremely dull, and the ones who didn't make it that far seem to think it's just shite (not that there aren't those who finished it and think it's bad..).

Does this apply at all to short fiction? I mean, most short fiction tends to have a good punch at the end, and not being able to read it all kills the entire story, most of the time. (Any idea why longer fiction can't hold a good punch/any examples - without spoilers - to books that do?)

- §.

11:45 / 07.10.03

I have a problem with John McLaren's Press Send. I bought it a few years ago in a charity shop, but have not been able to read more than a few pages ever since. It doesn't seem like the kind of book that would be hard to read, but I just can't get past the first few pages. It sits on my bookcase taunting me.

The only reason I can think of for this happening relates to the scariness of the photo of the author on the back of the book.

The Return Of Rothkoid

12:42 / 07.10.03

Why on earth would you force yourself to a read a book? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose? Do you really want to live your lives as English students, being forced to read?

Well, I wouldn't mind being forced to read. I try to force myself to read most days - otherwise, I'd just sit in front of the TV and let hours slide past.

I think the forcing oneself to read a book is fairly common in terms of guilt. People feel guilty that they haven't read The Classics (neatly leaving the "what books compose The Classics" debate for another thread) because of what they feel they might be missing. I feel guilty if I don't finish something because in a perverse way, then the author's beaten me. I know, it's not as if there's some kind of cool arm-wrestling arena where Dostoyevsky and I match up to see who throws who through the table, Over The Top-style, but I guess in my head there is. I don't like to be beaten by something I have - in most cases - put a lot of effort into. I recall reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy (that ! usage is almost as annoying as GY!BE's...) and hating it by the end, but I was determined not to let those smug motherfuckers beat me.

Threw it at a wall afterwards, but they didn't beat me - ha!

As for what I haven't finished? Largely classics. I'm not fully through the works of Malory that I've got in the red OED version as it gets a bit samey for me (all the helm-splitting seems to bleed into one after a while) and I haven't, still, finished Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - but I think this is due to tiredness, rather than lack of desire: it takes a little while for me to get into Chaucerian language, and therefore makes me feel the need to disengage with it agter a time.

As for a book I just can't, apparently, get through? That Bertrand Russell history of philosophy. I want to get a grounding in the discipline, but sweet fuck, it's like eating a roast made of styrofoam.

Strangely, my problems with The Lord Of The Rings comes in the last book, not the first one.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

17:21 / 07.10.03

I find difficulty with stream of consciousness books. If I think a book is just bad, then I'll go all the way through, as with House of Leaves. But I had difficulty with Illuminatis! and, although it's not really stream of consciousness as such, Clockwork Orange, until I broke into it. Ulysses and Portrait... I actually gave up, I think with SoC books it's easier to give up because I'm not understanding it, whereas with other books I may not like it but at least I'll understand what's going on.

20:32 / 07.10.03

Les Miserables. I was promised that if I could get through 50 pages, I'd love it. I got through 50, then 100, then 150, but it was like pulling teeth. From a chicken.

I force to myself to read because I think that the book is very likely of value, and that the problem is mine rather than the text's. Actually Les Miserables is the only block I've never been able to break. I think I've finally quit trying.

09:54 / 08.10.03

I think with SoC books it's easier to give up because I'm not understanding it

Virginia Woolf is the worst for this -I always used to look at them and think, awesome, a really short book which is also a classic, I can finish that in a day or so and still have read something substantive. Then, ten pages in, decided that it might be best to start again from the point at which I last understood a sentence, so that's back seven pages... and when it's finished, there's the creeping awareness that it took a week and a half to read a really short book. At least James Joyce lets you know what you're in for a bit more...

I also seem to have a mental block with the entire output of Ernest Hemmingway. I either can't get round to it, or can't bring myself to, and I'm never sure which it is.

Scrubb is on a downward spiral

13:02 / 08.10.03

Entirely agree about Virginia Woolf; my breaking point with Mrs Dalloway is about 3 pages in, and I've tried and tried to get through it. Mrs fucking Dalloway! It's thinner than a bumper Summer edition of Take a Break but I still can't do it.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

14:46 / 08.10.03

Something I've had a lot of luck with is reading aloud. Stream of consciousness novels, some others like Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' - they really beg to be read to yourself. Since HoD is pretty short, it's not a problem. 'To the Lighthouse' is far more interesting when you, er, wrap your lips around it.

I wouldn't want to try it for something like - taking an example at random and out of the hat, in no way drawing on a recent conversation with a friend of mine - 'Crime and Punishment', that really isn't going to work for

02:18 / 09.10.03

I got about 150 pages into ulysses by james joyce. This took me about a month and in the end i just couldn't get into it. Not thst it wasn't interesting but rather i didn't "get" it. It is a feeling of inadequacy not being able to finish a book especially one like ulysses which has been rated as the greatest book ever by many.

The Return Of Rothkoid

13:05 / 09.10.03

A hint with Ulysses: fuck "getting it". You won't. It's the sort of book that warrants rereading. Things only become clear on rereading - I know this for a fact. It's also a very oral book. If you get stuck, read it out loud to yourself in a dodgy Irish accent. (Unless you actually ARE from Eire, in which case your accent will be better than mine.) It's a very oral book - it's the equivalent of a boozy, pissheaded pub conversation, and should be viewed as such. If you take the view that it's just a shaggy dog tale that encompasses EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD (as told by an Irishman), then you should be right...

01:55 / 22.10.03

My brain just threw me a non-sequiter last night, and I remembered that I can never get into For Whom The Bell Tolls. I've tried, since I was 15 I've tried every couple of years or so. I can't do it, and it has since put me off attempting to read any other Ernest Hemingway.

I've had a similar thing with F Scott Fitzgerald since I was unable to finish reading Tender Is The Night ten years ago.

lord nuneaton savage

10:17 / 22.10.03

'Radon daughters' by Iain Sinclair; the greatest living British writer and his most acclaimed book, but it's like running into a fucking brick wall. I've started it three times now to no avail.
I think the problem is where you choose to read. If your on the bus in the morning then obviously you're not going to get into a book very easily, if however you're lounging on a chaise-longue and drinking fine wines then concentration becomes that much easier. (I find anyway).

10:04 / 23.10.03

I bought Satanic Verses when it came out and got about 10 pages into it. I finished it 10 years later. I don't have a book block as such, but I'm really bad about starting 3 or 4 books at once. It was really hard to plow through Melmoth the Wanderer (ok, it was pretty long, too), because of the 4 or so nested stories.

11:22 / 09.11.03

White Teeth. I pick it up, go "Goddamnit I am going to read this so I can talk about it to my friend T, it's not that hard", then within about half a page my brain is whimpering and scratching at the inside of my skull and begging me to be allowed to go and do something else. It's very similar to the thing I get with short amateur realfic where the main character is called "the girl" or "he" - you know, short stories in zines that start "The girl was waiting at the bus stop. It was raining" or "He inhaled on his cigarette and put on his jacket". I can't bear them... so there is some short fiction on which at least some people have mental blocks.

As for White Teeth - oh, it's just something about the tone, the manner of address, that reminds me of the "the girl" stories and makes me not able to read it. It... God, I can't even analyse it, my brain is lying pitifully flat on its stomach, whining and begging me to stop. It just makes me exhausted to think about it. I don't know why, because I've read a lot of worse books and a lot of better books: I think it's just that particular "quite good" bracket that I can't bear. The sort of thing that gets shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Except that I like Margaret Atwood and Phillip Pullman, so that's not entirely fair.

Whisky Priestess

17:41 / 09.11.03

I too got bored and annoyed about a third of the way through the Illuminatus trilogy, but I fear I may have missed my age-window for reading it (too old now for it to be new and interesting and mindbending). However, I am VERY proud of having forced my way through to the end of Malcolm bloody Lowry's Under the Volcano. So many people banged on about how great it was, sooo many people ... most of whom, I can only assume, have not read the bloody thing (I expect they saw the film instead, hmm?) The problem is that the prose is so "poetic" is actually unreadably dense. Like eating a whole Christmas pudding.

It took me a week in Crete and forcing myself to spend at least an hour a day with that book to do it - but Lowry did not beat me. Oh no. (I seem to remember having ranted about this before, so apologies ...)

18:03 / 10.11.03

Oh, I had trouble with Under the Volcano, too. And the only way I managed to drag myself through the Illuminatus Trilogy was when I put my back out and couldn't move for three days.

My latest mental block book has been Tom Robbins' Another Roadside Attraction. I like Robbins. I really love Still Life With Woodpecker and Jitterbug perfume, and I'm sure if I'd been lounging in the sultry summer weather with Another Roadside Attraction, I would have finished it. I enjoyed it when I was reading it, even though it's very, very dated, but picking it up after I'd put it down again became a kind of chore. So I worked my way through a 60s pulp, Ian Fleming's Doctor No, and a biography of Henry Morgan, instead.

18:06 / 10.11.03

Hmm, thinking about it, Another Roadside Attraction has dense, poetic prose just like Under the Volcano, where certain passages are brilliant, but there's just too much of it all at once...

Murray Hamhandler

18:52 / 10.11.03

I loooooved White Teeth and found it very...vernacular-y, in its own way. But that's just me. On the other hand:

Gravity's Rainbow. I don't know. I feel like I'll really appreciate this book if I manage to get all the way through it. I liked Crying of Lot 49 quite a bit, but V not so much. 'Appreciation' is probably the problem, in a way. I appreciate Pynchon w/o quite lurving him. Y'know?

The Sot-Weed Factor. Okay. I've read exactly zero of the novels which SWF (ha-ha) satirizes. So I felt like I was missing something the entire time that I was reading it. But I did enjoy the book for a while and found it fairly humorous. But it never seemed to end. I spent weeks and weeks reading the book for hours a day and it seemed like I never got anywhere. Out of frustration, I stopped about halfway through and didn't read a novel for months. Even now, I read fewer novels (and less often, when I do) and I blame it mostly on that experience. Well, and partly on being a full-time student. But as much as I've enjoyed the other Barth stuff I've read, I'm afraid to get near any of his books again. To the point that I break out in hives. Seriously.

And the obligatory Ulysses, Tristram Shandy, and anything by Dean Koontz.

15:48 / 11.11.03

very...vernacular-y

That might explain why I couldn't read it.

18:35 / 11.11.03

Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnameable - I fall asleep after reading 3 or 4 pages, verry, slowly - except for the second part of Molloy, narrated by Moran, which is truly wonderful and hilarious. Why can't the whole freaking thing be like that?

Anyway, I'm stuck in Malone Dies, about halfway through, but someone smart gave me permission to skim yesterday, so maybe I'll do that, finish it, and stop feeling so obtuse.

17:31 / 20.11.03

Kafka. i bought The Castle and The Trial after seeing the amzing film version starring (and i think directed by) Orson Welles, and fucking hell! the most frustrating book (The Castle) ive ever read. its not hard to read as such, just really really dull and frustrating. Although i suspect that may be the point, making it a clever, but still annoying book.
I found naked lunch really easy, but some burroughs can be hard work. i find reading with your 'minds voice' as old bill's voice really helps. if you've ever heard him reading his own stuff, it actually makes a lot more sense with the intended intonation and his laid-back skag drawl.