Books you stopped reading (for whatever reason)

Funnily enough I am halfway through a book I quit a couple of years ago (Laxness' Independent People) and finished Grossman's 'Life and Fate' earlier this year, which I had quit about five years ago.

One novel I didn't make it halfway through was Keith Gessen's ALL THE SAD YOUNG LITERARY MEN (2006?). It belongs in a thread like this as it's no MOBY-DICK, it's hard to say why it was unfinishable, but I kept bouncing off it and gave up. I suppose it irritated me.

The one novel I need to pick up again is Uwe Johnson's Anniversaries. Really enjoyed the first vol but decided to take a break. A bad idea.

Aimless did you have any luck with Wolf Hall? It finally seems to have clicked with me and I have no idea why.

I haven’t quit Simon Gray’s Smoking Diary but it might be on an infinite pause.

I quit an excellent new amateur Kindle-only translation of Dumas’s 20 Years After because the formatting is so poor. Not sure if that’s a good reason; book itself is excellent

PG has 20 Years After. and i have a copy that i've improved (epub only at the moment, but i think i can run it through calibre...)

(here if you want it - http://www.koogy.clara.co.uk/TwentyYearsAfter.bin - download it and rename to azw3 and let me know how it goes - first attempt at converting to azw3)

Ha, first response here is The Glass Bead Game, a book I read in a single sitting (and I have abandoned plenty of books, believe me)

This is one of the few I can remember not finishing. I don't even remember why. I picked it up because it was cited in another work which also now escapes me. It's going to bother me until I can remember.

i finally gave up on Ducks Newburyport after 400+ pages. this is ages ago already. so, almost halfway through the book. i felt it was still some sort of accomplishment. and i really did enjoy reading it during a time of plague. but i was starting to read five pages every month or so and that's when i knew i needed to call it quits. definitely keeping my copy. and if i ever need to read some Ulysses as written by Erma Bombeck again i will know where to turn.
the pandemic, in general, finally gave me the okay to not finish things. i always felt sorta bad not finishing a book, but not now! it turns out that life CAN be too short for some things. heck, i'll have 20 pages of a book left or 20 minutes of a movie left now and just go on to the next thing. i got the drift. no need to continue. thank you for the time we had together. i must be going now. its very liberating.

I gave up on The Corrections after 150 pages. Mainly I just found it annoying.

This year - Wolf Hall and Lonesome Dove because they’re both too effin’ long. I enjoyed LD and will go back to it next time I need a beach read — I just wanted something new after reading 300 pages and not being even a third of the way through.

I was impressed by Wolf Hall, found it easy enough to read, but I stopped after I realised I wasn’t enjoying it, just waiting for it to finish.

Oh and a book of Kelly Link’s short stories, after reading three that were merely okay.

I quit The Kindly Ones a few chapters in because it filled me with sickness and dread. I don’t think I’ve finished a novel since, for life reasons.

Funnily enough I have left the most books unfinished (about five out of fifty) than any other year I can remember. Don't think it's the pandemic, more to do with a lack of patience as I get older.

i'll have 20 pages of a book left or 20 minutes of a movie left now and just go on to the next thing

I couldn't stop at that point, I'd be too invested in seeing the gestalt (even it I hated it). Also, I feel like I can't comment in depth on a work I haven't completed other than to say "I didn't finish it, here's why".

I stopped reading The Winter King when I realized, despite it being reasonably well-written, I didn't need to further read a grimdark Arthurian tale.

L'Homme Qui Rit, Victor Hugo - my french was not up to a novel that seems to start with 50+ pages of technical information about sailing

The last books I left lying around in the last 12-18 months are Hopscotch (Cortázar), Auto-da-fé (Canetti), and Herzog (Bellow).

I wish I had smart things to say as reasons for each, but I guess I just didn't have the patience, or the atmosphere was wrong, or the characters morally unappealing, or it was dated. I'm usually persistent, something must really be wrong for me to stop.

Gave up on Zeno's Conscience earlier this year, just didn't care at all for the guy.

The one novel I need to pick up again is Uwe Johnson's Anniversaries. Really enjoyed the first vol but decided to take a break. A bad idea.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 23 August 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Oh yes I finished it this year. V easy to get involved again once I picked it up

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Didn't realise it was fundamentally an architectural treatise before going in

> Gave up on Zeno's Conscience earlier this year

don't tell me, the first half took 4 days, the third quarter took 2 days, the seventh eighth took a day and it just felt like you'd never quite finish it

It doesn't make me proud to admit that I've thrown out a book before finishing it but yeah, Murakami's "A wild sheep chase". I don't like his other books either. Or Ishiguro.

I think part of my frustration was that I went through a heavy Oe/Mishima phase and everybody was like "oh you like that? You should read this completely terrible other thing!"

(eleven years ago)

I actually threw out Never Let Me Go, also. Not really "threw it out", just read half of it on a flight, dozed off, was packing up my stuff to deplane, saw it sitting there in the sleeve and elected to leave it. I did read and finish The Remains Of The Day and hated it also. Basically all I read these days is re-reads of Nabokov and the Irish classics, idk, I'm crotchety now.

xp well played

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.