Here’s a discussion question for all of you: What are your perennial unfinished books? (Reading, not writing, you MFA kids.) I am currently 153 pages into a 1,188-pager, The Penguin History of the World, and I think I should start taking bets on how many tries it will take to actually finish it or whether I have any chance of making it past the Middle Ages without my eyes permanently glazing over.
My shelves are littered with tomes that have bookmarks stuck hopefully in the middle somewhere, waiting for me to come back. I’ve begun Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel countless times since I bought it on the recommendation of my friend Eric in about 2001. I also have its larger cousin, Collapse, which held me for about 2.5 chapters before my attention faltered and died out. I’ve read the first page of War and Peace about a trillion times, and my excuse now is I’m waiting for the Richard Pevear-Larissa Volokhonsky translation to come out in paperback. Then, I’m sure I’ll read it. I even have an early 1990s edition of Irish Fairy & Folk Tales by W.B. Yeats with a bookmark hand-embroidered by my mom that has been trapped where I left it since, yes, the early 1990s.
What books are you determined to get through one day? Are you someone who absolutely must finish books even if you don’t like them? Or are you totally fine with quitting books that don’t engage you by page 35?
Dorothy Parker once said in a review, “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” Sometimes that’s all too true; for the other times, all I can do is persevere.
My shelves are littered with tomes that have bookmarks stuck hopefully in the middle somewhere, waiting for me to come back. I’ve begun Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel countless times since I bought it on the recommendation of my friend Eric in about 2001. I also have its larger cousin, Collapse, which held me for about 2.5 chapters before my attention faltered and died out. I’ve read the first page of War and Peace about a trillion times, and my excuse now is I’m waiting for the Richard Pevear-Larissa Volokhonsky translation to come out in paperback. Then, I’m sure I’ll read it. I even have an early 1990s edition of Irish Fairy & Folk Tales by W.B. Yeats with a bookmark hand-embroidered by my mom that has been trapped where I left it since, yes, the early 1990s.
What books are you determined to get through one day? Are you someone who absolutely must finish books even if you don’t like them? Or are you totally fine with quitting books that don’t engage you by page 35?
Dorothy Parker once said in a review, “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” Sometimes that’s all too true; for the other times, all I can do is persevere.
9 comments:
If anyone's interested I propose we bet on which page Carolyn is going to reach in the Penguin History of the World before she gives up. (We'll have to keep our bets a secret from her until it's over.)
I've never finished 100 Years of Solitude or Invisible Man, despite the fact that I was required to read them both in high school and college. I like them, they were just assigned at the end of semesters (i.e. the period of time when I throw up my hands under the pressure and b-s my way to the finish line).
or b.s.
oh eff it. Bullshit. There. I said it.
100 Years of Solitude (why do some of the characters have the same name?!)and Swann's Way. Also, I've read The Inferno three times and never finished it, although I got pretty close the last time.
I can't finish Postwar by Tony Judt, which is the complete of what happened in every European country after World War II. But you know what? I don't care! I say, if a book doesn't interest you, toss it!
I am, just now, about 150 pages into Moby-Dick. I've read at least two books since Ahab was introduced (at which point, Melville's book abruptly became less interesting), and I'm trying to convince myself to wade back in.
When Lydia Davis's translation of Swan's Way came out in trade paperback, I tried it out. For a long time I went to bed early, and then I gave up on Swan's Way. I even have a svelte mass market edition of the Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Howard translation in case I'm feeling energetic and want to try to read it on the subway.
Reading Henry James, to me, is like trying to witness beach erosion. In her letters, Flannery O'Connor, describing why she admired James wrote (approximately), "When I read James, I feel like something's happening to me, albeit very slowly."
If you want to know about nonfiction, there are two books I want badly to read but know I'll never finish: Legacy of Ashes by Tim Wiener and House of War by James Carroll.
I never finished Ulysses by James Joyce, but that's because it sucks and is one of the most overrated pieces of literature in history.
The Lydia Davis translation is the one I have too.
I couldn't stand Ulysses! If I'd had a choice in reading it, I would have thrown it with great pleasure into the Tennessee River--let the fish enjoy the "pearls that were his eyes"!
But back to the post subject: I have a bad habit of starting books and stopping in the middle when I find something else I want to read more. The latest was Four Against the Arctic, which I've set aside in favor of Lee Child's thriller, The Hard Way.
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