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For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

topic posted Thu, March 3, 2005 - 5:24 PM by  Mark 		Share/Save/Bookmark
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The GR thread called up an interesting topic. What are some of the books you couldn't get through and thought you could? The scenario is that you have a genre, author, etc. that you love and you pick up the next book and you just can't finish it b/c of indifference, poorly written, any number of reasons.

Me, I will finish almost any book I start just to play it to the end. But rarely that doesn't happen.

My best example is my partial reading of "The Island of the Day Before." I love Uberto Eco. I was so enthralled with "The Name of the Rose" I read it in about one sitting. Reading the synopsis of "The Island of the Day Before" I thought I would be 'all over it like stink on rice.' Much to my disappointment, that was far from the case. I kept on starting it and getting deathly bored. I finally gave up when I was choosing to read Val-u-pack coupons rather than trudge another page in book.

Are you picking up what I am putting down? Has anyone else had this experience? What books, authors, genres were involved?

This could be a fun thread! :)
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Mark
offline Mark
SF Bay Area
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    Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

    Thu, March 3, 2005 - 5:34 PM
    There's a thread much like this in "I just finished reading...". Mine used to be GR - then I finished it. Second runner up: The Information by Martin Amis.
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    • carrie
      carrie
      offline 8

      Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

      Thu, March 3, 2005 - 5:55 PM
      I couldn't get through Russell Banks' Book of Jamaica. Now I love Banks, I mean LOVE, but I couldn't get into the book's main storyline. There was an interesting subplot, but it wasn't enough to keep me interested. Sigh.
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      • Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

        Thu, March 3, 2005 - 6:20 PM
        Ooh, fun thread!

        OK, I admit it. I never got through Finnegans Wake. But I read big chunks of it, and even kind of mostly tracked what was happening. Did speed-read Ulysses though, right before an exam on Joyce.

        Didn't get through Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. It's just too--tomey in an early 19th century way that doesn't appeal to me even when its' not a pastiche.

        Didn't get through House of Leaves either, though I admired it very much. I was afraid it was going to get too scary, and the thought of being really scared and bending my mind around the odd prose tricks made me a bit giddy.
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        • Miss...
          Miss Gillian
          offline 28

          Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

          Thu, March 3, 2005 - 8:32 PM
          I can't get through Vanity Fair no matter how hard I try. The closest I came to finishing it was when my t.v. broke. Even then I only managed to get through about half of it before I put it down and never picked it up again. Maybe one of these days I'll be forced to get through it for a class because that is the only way I think it's going to happen.
          As much as I love Ulysses, I can't imagine speed reading it. I think it is one of those books you really have to read slowly. But ask me again when I have a test on it and I might feel differently about it.
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          • Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

            Fri, March 4, 2005 - 3:47 AM
            Hee! I think it's best speed-read, actually. That way, I wasn't worried about whether or not I was reading it right--which for me can be a buzz-killer when reading things that are supposed to be important.

            Did you like the movie version of Vanity Fair? It got me interested in the book, despite my aversion to early 19thc novels.
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            • Miss...
              Miss Gillian
              offline 28

              Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

              Fri, March 4, 2005 - 9:36 AM
              I really liked the movie version of "Vanity Fair". That was what spurred me on to try reading it again, well that and not having a T.V..

              For me the whole "Ulysses" is one of the most important books ever written thing never really comes in to play when I read it. I love to take my time with it, getting lost in the language and all that other nerdy stuff. I just love the way that Joyce plays with words and symbolism. But like I said before, talk to me again when I am being tested on it and I have to do a quick skim. I may feel differently after that.
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    Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

    Fri, March 4, 2005 - 6:37 AM
    'Quicksilver', by Neal Stephenson. He's one of my favorite authors, but this is a thousand-page tome without a plot.

    Also 'Les Miserables', though through no fault of Victor Hugo.
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    • Alex
      Alex
      offline 13

      Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

      Fri, March 4, 2005 - 8:31 AM
      Life A Users Manual, by Georges Perec.

      It is an exquisitely created world, and a fantastic piece of literature, but for some reason its one of those books that always gets away from me. I'll read a few chapters, put it down, and find myself reading somethign else a few days later having forgotten i'd started it again.
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      • Gilton
        Gilton
        offline 51

        Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

        Fri, March 4, 2005 - 9:42 AM
        I had the same experience with Perec's Life A Users Manual. I believe the book all takes place in a single hotel and we go into the world of the hotel tenants. But it is exquisitely created, but you have to be motivated to continue. Reading Beckett for me is the same way, but somehow, Beckett seemed to keep my interest, I don't know how. But the "Unnamable" and "Waiting For Godot" or even "Crapp's Last Tape" while written in that emminent Beckett style are all very different. I wish I could have finished Perec's work. He died shortly I believe. Alot of great writers read him and consider him to be quite significant.

        Gilton
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    Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

    Wed, April 20, 2005 - 7:37 PM
    at the moment, E. M. Forster's A Room With a View, which I know is not a reflection of the book as much as a reflection of my frequent inability to get through a book. Often this happens, then I return & read whatever it was & like it. It's really rare for me to actually not finish a book.

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  • solo...
    solomouse
    offline 32

    Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

    Wed, April 20, 2005 - 7:44 PM
    Tolkein's Ring Saga, yawn.


    <<cowers behing the sofa to avoid the flying tomatoes>>
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    • Pie
      Pie
      offline 19

      Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

      Thu, April 21, 2005 - 6:03 AM
      Not an epic piece of literature, but I couldn't get through Anne Rice: The Vampire Chronicles. I started Interview with the Vampire when I was in 7th grade... I've been out of high school for 4 years now, I still haven't finished it. I never even started any of the other books, but I have them all. I tried reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra once, by Nietzsche, but it gave me a headache.

      I haven't finished Lord of the Rings yet either. I was in the middle of Fellowship & wondered if they had to have dinner with every person in Middle Earth before they would start their quest.
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      • Ben
        Ben
        offline 19

        Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

        Thu, April 21, 2005 - 11:56 PM
        Toni Morrison scares the crap out of me.

        I got about 17 pages into "Song of Solomon" and now I'm totally scared to pick it up again. I barely have time for work and school, but that book makes me want to tell people to leave me the hell alone. It could tear my very life apart. I think if I start reading it I'll be completely absorbed to the point where I will avoid everything just because it's so much more interesting than my life. I'm not ready to say "no" to life and "yes" to Toni Morrison. That book just keeps taunting me from the seat of my truck. Maybe I'll stack a notebook on top of it for a while. Or that bag of potatoes I have in there.
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        • Cath...
          Catherine
          offline 5

          Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

          Fri, October 7, 2005 - 6:39 AM
          Ben--
          If you stick it out, you might lose some ideal you have about life, but in the end, you will be redeemed. I must admit, the characters and the story do haunt me from time to time (sorta like Zelda in the movie of Pet Semetary), but I learned many things from them, also. Sometimes the only reason to read a book is to stretch and grow--Song of Solomon is certainly one of those books. However, some of her other books are heavy, scary, and lack that beautiful redemption offered up in S of S. I encourage you to try again.
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  • Kimb...
    Kimberly
    offline 30

    Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

    Sat, May 28, 2005 - 7:52 PM
    I concur on "The Name of the Rose".

    I never did get through Lila, Robert Pirsig's sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. There might be good stuff in there, but not yet for my eyes.

    "A Day Late and a Dollar Short" by Terry McMillan - I've picked it up a couple of times, can't get past the first page for some reason. I love her other stuff.

    Mebbe sometimes we're just not in the space for a book and what it has to say. I know there've been times when I've picked up a book I had put down before and suddenly, it's totally interesting whereas before it was dull as wood.

    go figure...

    --Kimberly
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  • Krista
    Krista
    offline 13

    Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

    Wed, June 1, 2005 - 11:06 AM
    I had the same experience with Island of the Day Before. Tried to read it several times, and just couldn't do it. I was determined to get through it though, so what I ended up doing was getting it from the library on tape. I listened to it while commuting to work, and actually quite enjoyed it that way. I could kind of half tune it out when it got boring, and pay attention when it got back on track. There's a lot of good stuff in there, if you can find it, so I recommend the book-on-tape version for any other fans of Eco out there.

    It's rare that I don't finish a book. I actually quite liked a lot of the books people have mentioned. Finnegan's Wake did defeat me, but then I only tried reading about a paragraph of it.
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  • J Re...
    J Reynolds
    offline 35

    Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

    Wed, June 1, 2005 - 8:12 PM
    It took me nearly 3 years to get through Don Delillo's "Underworld". There were at least two different periods when I would have submitted that title for this thread. In the end, it seemed fitting to take an epic amount of time to get through that one.

    I had the same problem as carrie with "Book Of Jamaica".

    My pick (and personal shame as a knee-jerk liberal) is Edward Abbey's "Monkey Wrench Gang". Why the hell don't I love this book? Its a cross between "Zodiac" and "Fight Club" (or, they are both arguably distilled from "Gang"). It just didn't take. My wife, who is a zoologist and equally knee-jerkish on matters environmental, has yet to forgive me. Oh the shame...
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    Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

    Sun, July 3, 2005 - 7:42 PM
    It looks like a lot of people have problems finishing Umberto Eco novels. I'm currently on "pause" with "The Island of the Day Before" halfway through, but i haven't made the decision to drop it yet.

    Harder still for me was "Foucault's Pendulum." I've tried to read this to the end twice because I love the endless encyclopedic rantings and insanely complicated conspiracies. Both times I made it past the 500s, but it was just too much. Eco's a big brain, but fortunately for his readers the grandest conspiracies always begin or finish on que with the emergence of Knights Templar.
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  • Chia
    Chia
    offline 48

    Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

    Fri, July 15, 2005 - 11:16 PM
    I loathed "The Bell Jar" when I read it (barely) as freshman in college because it was an assignment. A friend suggested that I pick it up again in graduate school a few years ago and now I have to admit I really liked it. It's funny how I couldn't finish it when I first picked it up and when I got around to reading it again I read it about twice in a row.
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  • drus...
    drusilla
    offline 74

    Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

    Sun, July 17, 2005 - 1:22 PM

    I had almost the same experience with Island of the Day Before, despite the fact that I'd put Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum on my top-50 list. I did manage to slog through it.... and it never improved. Gurgle.

    The current bane of my nightstand is Earthquake Weather by Tim Powers. I'd adored The Drawing of the Dark, and had such high hopes for Earthquake.... but it's been sitting there looking all cranky and disapproving and shit for at least 5 months now. 448 pages down; 179 to go... if necessary, one at a time, over the next 179 days :-)
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    • Deborah
      Deborah
      offline 20

      Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

      Sun, July 17, 2005 - 2:41 PM
      The Island of the Day Before was my third Eco: Name of the Rose I've read several times, and I read Foucault's Pendulum just about once a year for the past...ten years?

      I got about one-third in, and stalled. For years. Eventually I had absolutely nothing else to read and made myself do it, and having read Stephenson's Baroque Cycle in the interim, enjoyed it, although there was still a bit of hard slogging in there.

      There was a book called The White Hotel (? I think) that I threw out rather than finish, it bothered me so. I can't even remember exactly why, but I didn't want it in my house. Other than that, the only books I have been unable to finish are a sociology text in university, and Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which I considered myself lucky to get as far through as I did (two-thirds), not being a math/science person at all. I did enjoy that until my brain exploded, though.
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  • Debra
    Debra
    offline 31

    Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

    Wed, August 3, 2005 - 10:52 AM
    I am also an avid fan of umberto...and have read "The Name of the Rose" at least 7 times...and also found "The Island of the Day Before" absolutely dreadful and extremely disappointing. I remember the day I bought it, I was like a child on Christmas....Like you I started it on several occasions and withing 15 minutes found my mind wandering...deciding what shoes I was going to wear to work or if I remembered to flush. Needless to say I donated the book to the library without ever finishing it.
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  • Hot ...
    Hot Damn
    offline 96

    Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

    Thu, August 18, 2005 - 4:27 PM
    I remember the first time I ever stopped in the middle of the book, because it was such a relvelation. Up until around age 13 or 14 I indiscriminately consumed any and all text in front me (including shampoo bottles in the shower- does anyone else do that?).

    One day I found myself in the middle of a Clive Barker novel that I wasn't enjoying and it occured to me like I could just... stop. Stop reading. What a novel idea! I felt a bit drunk with power.

    As for what I can't finish these days: I have a dredful time with Thomas Pynchon, for whatever reason. And David Foster Wallace's fiction (though his essays make me want to marry him).

    But I say never give up! No number of false starts should discourage- one never knows which beginning will take.
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  • Re: For Some Reason I Just Couldn't Get Through It

    Fri, August 19, 2005 - 8:54 PM

    Mark,

    The only book that I tried to read recently and just couldn't bare to finish was Jonathan Franzen's "Strong Motion". I picked it up on a whim (like most of the books I read) because it sounded interesting, but after getting about 1/2 way through it, and realizing what the book was really going to be about (maybe i'm wrong), I decided to put it down and never pick it up again. A good friend of mine offered the premise that the family in said book hit a little too close to home in certain respects ... she may be right, but I don't want to finish it.

    This is very rare, though. I usually finish books, though sometimes I fall out of reading for awhile, then need to re-read a good portion of the book I was reading before I continue where I left off.

    Regards,

    John

    Falling You - exploring the beauty of voice and sound
    www.magnatune.com/artists/falling_you
    ** now available on iTunes **
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