Books you stopped reading (for whatever reason)

I like the idea of this board, and feel bad for the way I've contributed so far, just throwing in an additional item rather than furthering conversation.

So here goes: This may or may not be interesting to consider, but when is the reader at fault for giving up on a book? Lots of books are supposed to be difficult, and in the present dumbed down world the concentration required to finish books may even be an antidote to ADD. So yeah, to sum up, when's it our fault, and when's it theirs? Is it my problem I can't get through Gaddis's Recognitions or is he just obnoxious (or is this question just obnoxious?)?

Well, that's a tough call. I personally enjoyed it and found it quite readable. At the same time, I wouldn't say it is a must-read type of book. I'd say, give it another chance, and if you still don't find yourself getting interested, then bail on it with my blessings.

(xpost)

I've never been able to read Phillip K. Dick. I know that makes me a lesser person, but there's always something that makes me go "oh, brother" and toss the book aside.

i read three quarters with a dictionary and encyclopedia by my side, then developed a theory that Eco was trying to beat me into submission so that he could use me as a vehicle for the real message he was masking under the web of esoteric references.
but it never happened, he just keep going. we reached a standoff and i decided that if he was going to continue then he could do it without me.

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen owns this thread....I gave up on it awhile back....it was more of a personal decision, it was actually, in the literal sense, making me depressed...I guess the midwestern, middle class despair was too close to the bone....also, after awhile I just wanted to smack the characters and tell them to shut up and shape up! (fix up look sharp)

I say it owns this thread because I have a friend that did the same thing, and when I talked to my grandmother at Thanksgiving she had also given up on the Corrections..

Is it "presently" and "anyhow"?

Recently, I couldn't get more than a few pages into Northern Lights. I fear I have lost the ability to read fantasy novels. I mentioned on the ILE Ayn Rand thread that I couldn't get more than 5 pages into The Fountainhead. I am unable to penetrate William Gibson or Philip K. Dick. Pynchon's V lost me after a dedicated try which got me nearly a quarter of the way through.

Oh, and Underworld. I gave it the old college try, but gave up amidst all the baseball references.

Another was A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I find Dave Eggers really irritating.

Kate, I staggered through Northern Lights and thought it was really boring and dull, so I didn't read the next one. Darren did and said it was really good, so I gave it a try and it's actually way better. Especially since it's from another character's POV.

Me too. The thing is, I love Ford's short stories, especially Rock Springs. But even though there were some great scenes in The Sportswriter, I kept not wanting to pick it back up and finally didn't. I just wasn't interested. On the other hand, I saw him give a reading earlier this year of an excerpt from the forthcoming third book in that series (I guess he's making it into his own Rabbit chronicles), and at least the part he read was really good and surprisingly funny (since I don't think of him as a "funny" writer).

Two other notables I quit on: Kavalier and Clay (is it just me or is Chabon a little on the expository side? I was kind of enjoying, though; maybe I'll take it back up) and Cold Mountain (overwritten, overreaching, overrripe). I did finish Infinite Jest and mostly liked it all the way through, but I still think DFW writes better nonfiction than fiction.

So Frolic's the one I quit on, half through. Had to.

Finnegan's Wake also seems like an obvious book to stop during, one of those cases where the book seems to demonstrate its point far too soon, then crank, and crank, and crank, until the valve or the gasket breaks. You end up feeling a bit like Chaplin through the gears, or a victim of Rube Goldberg.

And for whatever reason I can't read Mann for the life of me, nor Eliot. Both just seem thudding and awful.

M.

I'll still say to read the Recognitions first-- people make the same mistake with Pynchon, reading Crying of Lot 49 first because it fits in your ass pocket, and then thinking that Pynchon's much more pop or cutesy than he eventually turns out to be (although I'd make the argument that 49 rehabilitates itself not once but three different times over the course of the book, an odd and unlikely feat for such a little thing).

Anyway, Carpenter's Gothic is a good, extremely claustrophobic elaboration for Gaddis, but _very_ dry, and a bit slight, in comparison to The Recognitions--it's wonderful in the company of JR and The Recognitions, but by itself doesn't really do what the other two were able.

The Recognitions contains, IMO, the main kernel of what Gaddis does for the rest of his career, and is the only one I'd feel comfortable saying that one could read and then forgo the others. It may be his most readable, as well, excepting maybe the 200 pages after the halfway point. Stick it through. It's one of the few books where I can honestly say I felt palpably _changed_ after having read it. Although, granted, that could have been a sign of age: I've grown prematurely crotchety about this sort of thing. But nonetheless, there was a time when it slipped right through the bobwire and downed a calf or two. It happened. I bled.

Best,

M.

Another nonfiction book I had long meant to read and gave up on was Common Ground, about desegregation violence in Boston in the 1970s. In order to provide sufficient background, the author seemed to have started in about the 1400s.

And The Museum Guard by Canadian novelist Howard Norman. Too repetitious, material stretched too thin. I know it was a style thing, but still.

I bought Fingersmith after two tremendous reviews, and was thoroughly annoyed by the book. Prurient piffle.

Surprised to see Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 (a wonderful tale) and Eco's Foucault's Pendulum and The Island of the Day Before (both of which I thought were significant fun) in this mix.

lol I don't know how anyone could get a rec for Ishiguro based on Mishima and Oe aside from racism

I guess it's inevitable that books I like (Remains of the Day) or love (Herzog) will show up.

Certain of my favourite books, like Naked Lunch, really don't have to be read in full to get it or not get it. I mean I like the book in its totality, but if anyone didn't like any random 30 pages of the book, I don't know that they would benefit from forging onward.

I bought The Country Will Bring Us No Peace by Matthieu Simard last night. Gave up after 30 pages. Luckily it only cost me 89p.

The Bible. Despite "we see through a glass darkly" and even "Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake," Paul/Ex-cop Saul can't help being a drag, and I know how it ends (thanks, spoilers).

I get stuck on "Jane and Prudence" although I otherwise love Pym

Also gave up "Neuromancer" and Harrison's "Light" because I found them incomprehensible. Obviously Harrison is a better writer, but with both it was a case of "these words cannot create a picture in my brain"

lol I don't know how anyone could get a rec for Ishiguro based on Mishima and Oe aside from racism

Mm that might be a step too far, generally recommending “other Japanese authors” because of my interest in the postwar Oe-Mishima axis, but you’re not wrong really

I might enjoy Murakami more now that I’m not expecting earth-tilting politicism

Think I went to Murakami first -- Wind-up Bird Chronicle is still more than worth a read imo -- as then went back to those others as Murakami disliked them.

I thought Men Without Women was outstanding.

Mm that might be a step too far, generally recommending “other Japanese authors” because of my interest in the postwar Oe-Mishima axis, but you’re not wrong really

But Ishiguro isn't Japanese! It is his heritage and part of his identity sure but for the most part he is a British author with very British concerns. As someone who also moved to a different country as a very young kid I feel v defensive of ppl assuming "identity = place of birth".

I dunno, his first two novels are on Japanese themes (as well as British ones) so it's not entirely wrong to place him, at least for a while, within a Japanese writerly tradition.

He's never written in Japanese, and is in fact on record as saying his Japanese is not fluent. And his most famous novel is the most British thing ever. I agree with Daniel, he's basically British, but with a Japanese heritage.

Some authors are affiliated with different places. Being born of Japanese parents in Japan and moving at age 2 is one thing, being born of Ukrainian parents and moving at age 1 to Brazil is already another thing, I think of Nabokov, Conrad, Taiye Selasi... some people cannot be placed and there is no line to be drawn without being reductive.

what about books by favorite authors that you have never managed to finish. and not so much authors whom you love for one one book like all those Christina Stead books i tried to read that weren't The Man Who Loved Children or i would be here all day. but authors who make your own hall of fame. i have attempted The Mandelbaum Gate by Muriel Spark thrice i believe. never made it more than 50 pages i don't think. don't remember why. could be the setting. when i try it a fourth time i'll make a note of why i stop again.

"for one book"...

For some years, I have been having a very difficult time finishing any book. I always end up putting them down 2/3s of the way through and then finding it almost impossible to pick them back up. It's kind of like executive dysfunction on a literary scale and I don't know how to deal with it. Short story collections have helped a fair amount, but I want to read big thick novels again!

I actually hit upon an idea the other week -- and which this thread has solidified -- which is to do re-reading as sections of big books (or small ones) again.

I want to revisit stuff without the need of having to finish.

Ah! I didn’t even myself realize Ishiguro was not Japanese. Well then! I suck as much as my friend. Ishiguro’s novel still got binned

Nabokov and Conrad good examples of “not of a single place”.

I unabashedly non-guilty pleasure love David Mitchell’s pulpy good time novels and for a long time joked that number9dream was “Murakami’s only good novel” but I should revisit Murakami I suppose

I have a copy of Mishima Thirst For Love I’ve never finished. Different translator, I think; Donald Keene was my favourite. A translator friend tells me Mishima has a couple novels just-translated from Japanese and the work is insanely good; have to order them. Idk I like Mishima but my interest has waned as I’ve aged.

Didn’t love The Dalkey Archive but I didn’t struggle with it. It’s the only O’Brien I haven’t reread

Idk how I feel about Coetzee, I read Disgrace and was like “oh he’s Philip Roth but in South Africa”, but a friend recommended Waiting For The Barbarians and I only got 50 pages in before I put it into the donation stack

JR, Gaddis - realized the payoff would not be worth the immense effort
Pylon, Faulkner - starting reading it before watching The Tarnished Angels, stopped when I realized I was saying the word "yair" out loud every time I read it
Nightwood, Barnes - insufferable pretentious prose
Ada, Nabokov - insufferable pompous narrator. If that's "the point" I still don't want to know
The Process, Gysin - some gross description I don't remember in the opening pages put me off
Dhalgren, Delany - had my fill of depictions of late-60s urban counterculture with hallucinatory/SF trappings
The Tin Drum, Grass - had my fill of unfunny grotesque slapstick making fun of Nazis
Sleep Has His House, Kavan - first she describes some psychological situation from her past, then she depicts it in "dream form", the two parts undermining each other. I loved Ice, though, where the hallucinatory setting stands on its own without explication
Song of the Silent Snow, Selby - liked or loved his previous four books, found this collection of short stories pointless

i would think The Room would be the step too far for some people when it comes to Selby. its rough to get through.

the only Nabokov i ever finished was Invitation to a Beheading. maybe because it was short. i gave up on Lolita more than once. its the kind of writing that drives me crazy. like Pynchon. i'll bet AI robots could write some good Nabokov books. someone should start publishing AI Pynchon books! he would probably dig them.

Dhalgren, Delany - had my fill of depictions of late-60s urban counterculture with hallucinatory/SF trappings
The Tin Drum, Grass - had my fill of unfunny grotesque slapstick making fun of Nazis

These are two of my favorite books ever, haha

Wow Scott! Nabokov is one of my favourites, and Beheading one of my least-favourites. Wish you liked his prose style more, I think he's amazing. If you want a shorter book by him give Pnin a shot

I quit reading the Magicians series somewhere, I think probably 3/4 of the way through book 2. I liked them, but it took me a long time to read them and for some reason i got totally confused somewhere in Book 2, couldn't tell some characters apart, and then figured fuck it I don't really need to read these (I stopped watching the tv series later when it started as well. I guess...maybe I don't like it?)

I haven't finished Dhalgren either, but only because I can never seem to settle into the formal shift in Ch. 7. I think it's a fascinating book.

I should have stopped reading The Magicians but unfortunately I finished it

Ada or Ardor and Nightwood definitely flawed overblown works I had to power through. I guess it's a style. The opening medieval sexual fantasy in Ada had enough charm, the rest is really long and Nabokov is insufferable as a narrator.
I was quite impressed by The Tin Drum. The line between awe and irritation in literary experiments can be really thin. In certain works (Musil a good example), I experienced both reactions almost simultaneously. Mann as an example of an author who made me blush me with one work, and count the pages with another. A book can be a bit like dating.

I haven't read all of Nabokov's novels, but while Lolita is a remarkable accomplishment, the one I thought was most interesting (and entertaining) was Pale Fire.

Yeah on many days Pale Fire is my favourite English-language novel

That one I did finish, though I can't say I loved it.

Thought of another I didn't complete: Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth.

I very rarely abandon a record or a movie once I've started it, but I don't have those compunctions around fiction; because books take longer to read, and I'm not really invested in the history and the technique of literature in the same way I am with music and film.

Yeah I had an American pomo phase in my early 20s where I picked up everything I could find by Barth, Barthelme (Donald) and Coover at the used stores. I don’t think I finished anything by Barth in the end. Love the other two tho

i think i tried pomo people and quickly realized i didn't have what it took to read them. i was going to buy some barthleme the other day though. because he was funny and his shorts were often very short. my kinda pomo. i went to a new new/used bookstore down the road from me - the guy also has a store in brooklyn and please don't let this mean that we are going to be the new brooklyn - and his used fiction was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 80s gen x bookish grad student dude and it made me itchy. so much barth/coover/hawkes and also bellow/roth/updike/etc. so much of it was stuff that was happening in 1986. nothing old or creaky enough for me. it gets harder and harder for me to find a store that sells 50s/60s/70s hardcover OOP fiction. or obscure 19th/early 20th century stuff. the section had to have been 90% dudes. and i read probably 75% laydeez when it comes to fiction. i couldn't help but think that anyone under 50 would just fall asleep looking at all of that on shelves. his new book section was MUCH happier and hipper and i got some great stuff over there. he also had about 10 huge shelves of used poetry and i thought this was admirable because they will no doubt sit there for people to read in the store long after my death.

"Barthelme"

(Donald)

My copy of Coover’s “Universal Baseball Assoc.” sits neatly on my shelf right next to Darnielle’s “Wolf In White Van”, sorted alphabetically by author, but it’s also a topically appropriate adjacency

Also D Barthelme’s 60 Stories is kinda the ne plus ultra of easy pomo reading, I love it

I read Barth's The End of the Road and some Coover and Barthelme over the years but my brain lacks the dendrites or whatever to absorb them.

i have been enjoying diane williams and gary lutz collections of stories. they are inspiring to me in a pomo way. i read a couple here and there for a boost.

I'll tell you who I've been rereading with pleasure: Joy Williams. What a story writer.

Ya she rules. My favourite Carver collection is Cathedral, whereby Gordon Lish had free rein to posthumously divorce the late Raymond from his Hemingway affectations. I found out about Williams via the Lish connection

i've been reading her since breaking and entering came out and been a huge fan ever since. she has truly inspired me over the years. she has always been big with other writers and i think she is finally better known with regular folks as well. partly because of her environmental stances. (i'm sure you will find me raving about her years ago on ILB and wondering why more people don't read her and now i feel like people really are.)

Yeah her early stories and first novel, State of Grace---Florida girl clouds ov imagery around crisis lines, narrative third and other rails---were revelatory to me, though haven't followed her very well since. A relatively recent New Yorker story seemed unfollowable, and interviews can incl. some Joyce-Carol-Oates-on-Twitter-level snobbery, but the early stuff, at least, is fine as wine.

she's 79 and still doing stuff. god bless. i think she's always been a little cranky.

I know that I've heard some of her stories read on "Selected Shorts," and I've loved them, but I can't think of what they were.

I didn't discover her until 2021, and the rhythm, brevity, and its gnomic virtues gripped me from the start

"Marabou" was definitely one.

love that joy williams and gary lutz have come up, they are the greatest

a friend of mine once compared my writing to gary lutz which is an amazing (and undeserved) compliment

ada was one of my favorite books forever ago! reckon these days it'd make my eyes roll so hard they corkscrew out the back of my skull

+1 to the bible-giver-uppers: i was never a believer but in my teens decided i should read it for its literary and cultural value (and also to brag) but within the first few pages god cursed eve and all womankind so i ripped it up and set it on fire because i absolutely do not play that

more recently i tried frederik pohl's beyond the blue event horizon and it was like chapter 1: "no young man, do not commit rape. there is only a 1 in 6 chance you will enjoy it enough for it to be worth the effort lololol" chapter 2: "dear diary, it sure is tiresome to be a forty year old dude on a cramped spaceship with my bitchy wife and her bitchy 14 year old sister who keeps trying to seduce me, guess there's nothing to do but keep beating the ship's (female) computer at chess lololol" and there were some promising sci-fi concepts to begin with but a writer has to be way more entertaining to get me to power through that much hatred