THEN WE DIDN'T QUITE GET TO THE END.
When is the right time to give up on a book that most other people seem to be enjoying, but you are finding dull, self satisfied and smug?
I'm a hundred pages into "Then we came to the End," and don't think I can finish it. I am slightly distracted by the latest Iain Banks awaiting my attention, but wonder whether I should persevere in case it gets better. But is a hundred pages in enough of a chance?
It's had very good reviews from the likes of Craig Brown, The Times and The Observer; my friend (not my only friend you understand) read it and heartily recommended it, so one wonders if to give up would be a betrayal of the time and effort of the author. Anybody else read it? Perhaps if I worked in a creative environment and had the chance to waste the hours that the workers in the book do, maybe I'd be able to relate to it better, but boy, is it dull.
So- just how much of a chance should you give a book that you're not enjoying.
Does anyone want it? It's a tiny bit worn, but I'll post it for nowt.
(Always thought this forum would be a good way of swapping/trading material).
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never persist with a book
never persist with a book you find dull, there's just too much out there to read. Don't feel guilty about not liking something that has otherwise been highly acclaimed - your opinion is as valid as The Times. I haven't read the book you're talking about but 100 pages is a more than enough. How long is the book? What's the equivalent in music? Should you give an album 6 or 7 tracks to grab you? I say read something else. Like the idea of swapping stuff though.
totally agree... plus natsuo kirino's new book...
100 pages? wow! i would've given up long ago.
just finished natsuo kirno's "grotesque"; was a drag at times, but a great read nevertheless, me thinks.
Bin it
I couldn't even get past 100 pages before I gave up. Dull, dull, dull book.
Drop It
You've given it a chance. Life is too short and your time is too precious. I'd give it to someone else.
Life's too short
If it's not regarded as infra dig to plagiarise one's own post, this is something I added on this very subject recently:
"I picked up Cloud Atlas along with the other five Booker nominees from that year, 2006 was it? Anyway: I started with Cloud Atlas [which was terrific]; then The Electric Michelangelo, by Sarah Hall, which I thought was utter drivel, hurled aside with great force after about 20 pages; then one by a South African author, can't remember the name or title [it was Bitter Fruit by Achmat Angkor], not badly written but so dull that I threw in the towel after about 40 pages; then the winner, The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst: big disappointment, full of caricatures and trite observations, nobody worth sticking with, I lasted about a hundred pages before reminding myself that nobody was forcing me to finish the damn thing."
It felt liberating to give up on a book without guilt, same as when I first walked out of a film (Moulin Rouge).
That said, I struggled a bit with the first of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels, because of the preponderance of nautical jargon. I'm very glad I persevered, as I'm now deriving huge pleasure from them. Maybe it was gut instinct that kept me going on this case, and allowed me to give up on the others.
Catcher In The Rye
hailed by almost everyone as a classic, supposedly a trigger for the murder of John Lennon, and banned in some schools in the US for being subversive. I got three quarters of the way through it before my hatred of Holden Caulfield got so bad that I could read no more. Never have I wanted to give a fictional character such a good slapping.
A kindered spirit!
I did finish it,but my anger rises whenever it is mentioned as a 20th Century Classic. What an whining spoilt fool.
(Hugely influential on Bret Easton Ellis and his 'woe is me' college year novels. I'm looking at you Less Than Zero and The Rules Of Attraction.)
Same here...
If ever there was a book you should onle ever read at the age of 15 it's CitR. Sadly I read it for the first time in my late twenties or early thirties. I got to the end but, good grief, did I ever want to give the whining little spoiled brat a right good slapping too. The literary equivalent of Kevin the Teenager.
Made the same mistake with On the Road too. I just kept sitting there thinking, "Oh for God's sake, grow up and get a job. Take responsibility and do something useful with your life". And then halfway through the book he runs out of money, goes home to Mummy to get his washing done... Beatnik rebel? Tosser more like!
For the record, did get all the way through both books.
Ironically, around the same time I read "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the first time. 200 or so pages of pure, unadulerated genius and now ranking among my most favourite books!
...
I was 16 I think when I read it and I thought it was terrible then.
Lord alone knows how I'd feel now.
With age comes wisdom
I read TKAM at school and as is the way, hated it. Well it's school innit? Many years later I picked up a copy in a 2nd hand bookshop and read it again...and this time I got it. It's a truly wonderful book. Was suprised to find that it's Harper Lee's only book.
Damn good movie too!
That's it!
Coincidence?
I bought both CitR and On the Road on the same afternoon browsing around WHsmiths about five years ago. I was in my early twenties and had just been introduced to the amazing Hunter S. Thompson and wanted to look into this beat thing that had supposedly influenced the Duke, daddy-o. Turned out it's just some bloke driving back and forth forever in an utterly humourless, pointless way. It took me years to give beat writing another go and I blame Kerouac for the fact it took me so long to get round to giving Naked Lunch a try, probably one of my favourite ever reads.
Caulfield's confusion and self doubt are what the book is about.
The 1950s American Dream offers him little solace from his own growing pains. He is still, in the end, resigned to his fate yet faintly optimistic about it. He has learned some hard lessons, including a need to cynically distance himself from the falseness and lack of sincerity that surrounds him, yet is not without charm; he truly loves his sister, and grieves the loss of his little brother.
Not to mention catch 22 of
Not to mention catch 22 of course. And On the Road.
Catch 22
Didn't you like it ?? I still think it was one of the funniest things I have ever read.
I'm with Springer
I loved Catch 22 - having seen the movie first [ which confused the heck out of me at the time] I was expecting the worst. The sequel Closing Time, I did find deathly dull.
I have always avoided On The Road due to it's "hip" reputation.
did finish "catcher in the
did finish "catcher in the rye", but it didn't do much for me.
"on the road", on the other hand, was very inspiring. i read it when i was 17 or 18 years old... not sure i'd enjoy it that much now.
i read it when i was 17 or 18 years old...
EXACTLY!!!!!
Funny how? It's not
Funny how? It's not satirical, unless of course it's allegorical, and I've never been able to see things like that. I just don't get it- boring characters, inane stories told to magnify human suffering, and the self satisfied hum of smugness. Nope, not my cup of cha. Bring on the Iain Banks latest tome.
Catch 22- just didn't get
Catch 22- just didn't get it. But then I really enjoyed the green mile- so that probably says more than I'd like.
Wow!
I literally never knew there were people in the world who didn't get Catch-22. Fair enough, it takes all sorts.
Wowee!
I literally never knew there were people who did get Catch-22. The only thing I do know is people who say it's funny are the most boring people I've ever met.
Thanks you old Sod
But then you've never met me.
Funnily enough
I gave up on Iain Banks's "Dead Air" - dull beyond belief, and characters I hated without exception - and I loved his earlier ones. Me I love "Catcher", "Catch" and "Road". I nearly gave up on Vernon God Little but mostly due to new child knackeredness - glad I didn't - enjoyed it once I got going.
Dead air was dull- i'm
Dead air was dull- i'm starting the latest one today- this very lunchtime!
Let us know if it's any cop
the earlier ones have been excellent.
Then we didn't either...
Likewise, read the rave reviews, couldn't get beyond page 50 or so. I know dullness was kind of the point (as I recall) but not this dull, surely? Sort of like a shit version of Joseph Heller's 'Something Happened' (which I love).
Then I read Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' and am still forcing copies of it on all my friends. Now that's a book... I felt concussed for days after reading it, but in a good way...
The Road
Absolutely! It is a small masterpiece (not even spoilt by the Daily Mail quote on the cover of my edition).
Back to the subject in hand -- I will read anything, so I have rarely failed to finish a book that I hate. However, two that spring to mind were Steve Martin's abomination Shopgirl and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Steve should have stuck to films (although he has been losing his touch there too of late) and Mr Pirsig was just too up himself to realise that his book was about 75 pages too long.
Phaedrus did go on a bit
but I'm not sure if the book was really 75 pages too long, there was a lot to explain. It's not an easy read, but then it isn't meant to be; it's a pretty difficult subject. I think it's one of the best books I've ever read.
Infinite Jest
I was loving it. Lapping it up, I was. But the weeks went by and however much I kept reading the weight in my right hand was not discernibly shifting over to my left at all.
In the end I gave up about 400 pages in, swearing that some day I'll definitely pick it up where I left off.
I lied.
David Foster Wallace
I'm about 500 pages into Infinite Jest: its very good and worth persisting with - even the footnotes are entertaining (although the footnotes to the footnotes are perhaps a step to far). Progress is slow though - still less than halfway through! I would also recommend "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" (a collection of his (much) shorter fiction) and his non-fiction collection "Consider the Lobster" - equally good writing and less likely to result in sprained wrists.
Oh the road. A book to
Oh the road. A book to change your life, seriously- everyone, get a copy and feel your life changing as you turn the pages. Never has so much been achieved by just two characters, walking along a road. Stunning. It made me cry. And I'm a bloke.
Horses for Courses
I absolutely hated On The Road, and thought Dean Moriarty an entirely tedious character. Weirdly, though, I tend to like people who claim to have been influenced by it - Dylan, Hunter S, Thompson, Tom Waits etc.
I'm confused!
Are we discussing Cormac McCarthy's The Road or Jack Kerouac's On The Road? The former sounds great, the latter has never appealed.
Good question
I was thinking of the latter, and on reflection I think wirralboy meant the former. My glasses need a clean.
See below...
See Wirralboy's reply 3 below this (at the time of writing!) - he did mean The Road. I'll check it out!
Yep
I think I owe it to him to read it.
*gets out debit card*
I tried, honest I tried...
I agree that life's too short to read a book you're not enjoying and that 100 pages is easily enough for you to have made your mind up about it. If you want rid of it, why don't you 'free' your copy via the good people at www.bookcrossing.com?
Having said that, I'll happily read most things through to the end, but these three stumped me.
Ulysses: sorry, but what?
Moby Dick: it's a sodding whale, you're there to catch it, so catch it.
The Pickwick Papers: let's just say that Charlie must have been developing his style.
Ulysses
I have been reading Ulysses for about 5 years. My girlfriend (now wife & mother of unborn child) bought it for me when we started going out and I was determined to read it from sentimnental reasons and also because it promises so much.
Everytime I am off work ill I crack open another of its 18 meaty sections and every time I absolutely love it. It repays dividends so richly (esp. if you keep up with the notes) that although I am only on the Nighttown section (this is also a walkabouts lp FYI) I would still rate it as a favourite book.
Some people spend a lifetime seeing the world a town at a time. You would not never decide not to travel because you couldn't do it all in a week. India one year, China the next etc... Joyce designed Ulysses to represent a) the human body b) the human mind and soul c) a day d) Dublin, and most of all e) the world.
get an industriual strength bookmark and try it in bites and nibbles. It's delicious.
Also loved Moby Dick but God it goes on...
Pickwick is sublime, but then I read it when I was 16 and took a year over it. Heartwarming, perspicacious stuff.
Hard Work
When I was doing my degree, Ulysses was on the final year course and the unwritten rule was that if you attempted the questions on it and could prove that you at least tried to read it, there was extra marks in it for you. It took me two months to get through it, armed at all times with my york notes. Ended up reading it twice and even completed the exam on it but by jesus it's hard work and that's not really what reading's about, is it?
Go for At Swim Two Birds by Flann O'Brien instead, THE Irish novel and an absolute hoot to boot. I must have read that thing about ten times at this stage and it never fails.
Hard is the Word
Smurphy, "esp. if you keep up with the notes"; "get an industriual strength bookmark and try it in bites and nibbles"; "but God it goes on..."; "[I] took a year over it".
I admire your determination and gumption, but as Pat says 'trial by paperback' isn't what reading's all about for me. I guess I had enough of that doing my degree. I will tackle 'difficult' books these days, but they have to be enjoyable as well as difficult.
And Pat, I'm with you all the way on At Swim Two Birds. Just superb. As is The Third Policeman.
Ulysses
Hmm, maybe - but I'm not saying EVERY book hasd to be struggle and study, just that perhaps if a book challenges you there may be more in there for you if you give it time and effort.
A "walk" could be a stroll to the shops or an ascent of Everest. We don't tell people who run marathons or sail rounbd the world "why bother - it's too much effort". They obviously get loads out of it. It's horses for corses. It doesn't make Ulysses rubbish.
I don't climb mountains - too wheezy, but I tackle the occasional mountainous tome, just for the rush and the sense of gratification it gives me. I'm all for fiction as chillout & unwind but there's more to life than an easy read.
It's a peach. Don't be put off.
Rubbish
I never said Ulysses was rubbish. I just said I couldn't get on with it personally. Nor did I say that life was all about an "easy read". I just prefer my difficult reads to be enjoyable.
But maybe, just maybe, I'll pack Mr Joyce's tome when I go on holiday this year. That way I'll be able to give it the love, attention and dedication that I've not given it in the past.
You won't ever persuade me to pick up Moby Dick again though!
Surely THE Irish Novel
is Puckoon?
An Beal Bocht
Puckoon is good craic right enough but give The Poor Mouth a go, although not in a public place as you'll split yourself laughing. Of course, you should really be reading it in the original Gaelic blah, blah, blah...
Nope, Pat's right
"At Swim Two Birds" is The One
The Irish Novel
Try M J Hyland's corking and unsettling "Carry Me Down" (Adrian Mole rewritten buy Roddy Doyle) and also anything by Patrick McCabe, including the creepy "The Dead School".
Seamus Deane's fictionalised memoir "Reading in the Dark" is a tour de force of family secrets and a child's eye view of a violent world and I couldn't be without John McGahern's tough and glacial short stories.
Patrick McCabe's yer man...
The Butchers Boy. Now that is a creepy book!
Late to this thread, hadn't spotted it. Good to see we are all as akwardly opinionated about books as we are music, films and telly. Is there a pairing up scheme, tho', so say Supertramp and Gilbert O'Sullivan fans can group with lovers of, o, I don't know, JK Rowling, whilst the Richard Thompson brigade can enjoy decent books........
I regularly give up on books
I love reading and try to get through about a book a week, but sometimes I just know it's too much trouble.
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad is one example. Loved Secret Agent and Heart Of Darkness. This one was just plain boring - after 80 pages nothing had happened of any consequence, so I ditched it. It still sits there on the shelf now, taunting me, but my willpower is strong enough to resist another go. As Jeff P says further up, there's too much out there.
Other books I've given up on, even though I like other books by the same author:
Vurt, JPod, The English (Jeremy Paxman).
JPod
I've never read the book, but there is a rather wonderful Canadian TV series based apon it which I am enjoying at the moment. A friend who HAS read the book tells me that it [the early episodes at least] sticks to the book's plot fairly faithfully. It's now on my "to by" list.
had a similar experience with Nostromo
- started it four or five times but never seemed to get anywhere. Then on attempt number six or seven it all fell into place. Which just goes to show that you should always give up when it's no fun - it keeps the curiosity alive. Much better than forcing yourself through to the bitter end, hating the book and yourself for feeling obliged to persevere.
Apologies- let me clarify.
Apologies- let me clarify. On the Road- turgid crap. The Road, best book of the 21st century, bar none. Hope that makes my position clear!!! (having rubbed eyes and had yet more terribel work vending machine coffee).
Looking forward to hearing
Looking forward to hearing your ringing endorsements of the finest book in Corman Mccarthy's canon.
(i'll not be giving recompence should you somehow give up at about page 100...)
Back then...
...I'd hoover up anything, but as time goes by I find myself more often saying to, um, myself, "I've already read better than this, what am I missing". The latest Garrison Keillor is currently fulfilling the role of giving me something to read when I need convincing that sleep is actually a more attractive option. And sorry, Mark Radcliffe, I guess I'll never find out what happens at the end of Northern Sky.
...and Stuart Maconie too...
...I ran out of steam with his northern travelogue...
Keillor started the downhill slide when he decided that...
...he was a "serious" author rather than a humourist. I cite WLT: A Radio Romance as the start. He needs the episodic, Lake Wobegone formula to hone his writing down and cut out the flab. That said, I very much enjoyed the Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 novel. Not read Pontoon yet.
Radio Romance
I have to disagree. There's lots of humour in Radio Romance. Keillor's humour gives me a nice warm glow inside and I didn't have any problems with the novel as opposed to the short stories. But then the first book Lake Wobegone Days was'nt a collection of short stories.
But Mrs P agrees with you and she didn't like RR either.
I loved it
....but Mrs Twang didn't - maybe it's a guy thing?
It's very rare I'll put down a book..
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence: Got about halfway through and it was just agonising. Had to stop. I'm sure it was good in its day.
Lights out for the Territory by Iain Sinclair. This was the only book I didn't get to the end of last year. I spent about a month on it as well. The language just war me down.
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth: I actually read more than 1000 pages of this and stopped for a bit and my book mark fell out and I have no idea where I got to. This was about 5 years ago. I do honestly plan to finish it one day, I was enjoying it. This must win the prize for the most pages read of a book without finishing it.
Oooh!
You've just reminded of another book that was totally putdownable: Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I stopped reading it about half-way through and it must contain 500 words in total. Total garbage.
JLS
I read it to see what all the fuss was about. But as you point out at 500 words or whatever its not exactly War and Peace so didn't find it took much of my time.
Snap for Lights Out
God I hated this book! Virtually any sentence could have appeared in Pseuds Corner, the language was just ridiculous, and his obsessions with psychogeography, Cremaster, Necronomicon etc just came to seem silly. There were some good passages here and there, but when I finally chucked in the towel, I felt a weight had lifted - probably the dictionary I had to have on me at all times...
NP: Tinariwen
A Thousand Splendid Sons
by Khalid Hosseini (Kite Runner chap). I am 2/3rds through this and cannot put it down - excellent! But at 150 pages I was ready to ditch it; twas so slow. Perseverence does often repay.
Pies and Prejudice
I loved it. Very amusing.
Clive Barker
I have managed to read two of his books; Weaveworld and The Great And Secret Show. Weaveworld was a clever idea, but tediously bogged down in detail, and The Great... was just too damn full of itself. I gave up on him after those two.
Weavy
I dropped weaveworld like a red hot turd. Crapulent, bloated, teenage tosh.
Weaveworld
My thoughts exactly. One of my brothers told me how wonderful it was and insisted I should read it. Finished it and off it went to the charity shop.
50 pages
I give books 50 pages and if I'm not that bothered by it then it goes into the charity bag.
Lots of great comments on here (as usual) and the ones about Catcher in the Rye, On the Road, Catch 22 etc. made me think that with those books it really depends what age you were when you first read them. I read Catcher in the Rye when I was 15 and loved it. Re-read it a couple of years ago (at 36 or so) and didn't. I didn't read On the Road until in my 30s and didn't like it at all. Wanted the characters to stop wandering around and do something constructive. Hardly the attitude that would ingratiate me with the Beat Generation coffee bar scene Daddio.
Funny how the films and music I got into at 15 I still love (Blade Runner, Gregory's Girl, The Smiths, The Temptations) but the books I'm a little embarrassed by.
Has anyone read The Risk Pool ?
Its the second book by Richard Russo and I give it to everyone. Its quite a funny book about a guys relationship with his dad and you get alot about life from it. He went on to write 5 other books, one of which won Pulitzer Prize and for the life of me I've never been able to finish any of them. And believe me The Risk Pool is such a classic I've tried.
No but I've read all his others
And enjoyed them all! So I'll look out for this one - thanks for the recommendation. Or will I hate it because I like the others......?
I have a very old fashioned attitude to books
Traditionally I stick at it and try to see it through.
However I baled out of Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy", not because I wasn't enjoying it but because I wanted to look forward to a time when I wasn't reading it.
Last year I stopped halfway through George Eliot's "Middlemarch". I may return but it's so dense I shall have to start all over again from base camp.
Middlemarch
Do return to it, David - it's a fabulous book. Honestly.
4th attempt
A suitable boy took four attempts to get the whole way through, absolutely worth it. I enjoyed it as far as I got the first three times, but it's tricky to transport and takes a commitment of time - a series of flights and a bit of backpacking were what finally gave me the opportunity to finish it. Since then I've read everything else he's written.
American Psycho however I've still failed to get more than a few two page suit descriptions through. Maybe one day.
An Over-Rated Plate Full of Knackers
'The Da Vinci Code''.
I know it's the vogue to say the book that lit up the lives of many a couple of years back is a bowl of bollocks, but it is.
And I didn't bother finishing it.
Total cobblers, and badly written
of course, but the book works fine as long as you read it in an economy seat at 35000 feet, while doing 450 knots. You need to have the attention span of a goldfish to enjoy the book, and that's the only environment in which the average Word reader can emulate goldfishness.
How about indulging Dan
How about indulging Dan Browns 'ode to cack' why sitting in a tepid, inch deep bath for 8 hours.
Dostoyesky
I may have spelled the name wrong but after finally reaching the end of Crime and Punisment a year after I started it I'm past caring. I hate giving up on a book but I had to read several shorter books along the way for some light relief. I did however give up on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance two thirds thru'. Did I miss anything, has anyone ever got to the end of this one?
C&P and Zen
I never found any problem with Crime and Punishment. It's a book I've been thinking about reading again as it has been so long since I read it.
Zen is a book I've read twice. Back in the 70's and about 6 or 7 years ago. My memory of what I'd read was greatly at odds with what I experienced 2nd time round, but I still enjoyed immensely. There is a fascinating profusion of ideas. It even encouraged me to investigate pre Socratic philosophy. Which is more than I can say for that steaming pile of dog shit known as Sophie's World.
Hands up anyone who enjoyed their first pint?
My point being that some things are worth persevering with. Zen / Motorcycle Maintenance being a good example. I gave up twice after god knows how many pages, then after several years gap managed to get through it all and thoroughly enjoyed it. Some books are challenging but worth it (I can imagine Sophie's World being a struggle if you aren't into philosophy but for me the twist at the end was really worth it).
The only problem is working out which books to stay with and which to bail out on. Had plenty of the latter too - Tolkein's Silmarillion being but one (more geneaology textbook than novel). I also got bored silly with Bonfire of the Vanities.
this all smacks of calvinism
Why is sticking with abook a good thing, you wouldn't stand in front of painting until you liked it, why do we have to suffer for pleasure, I know books are seen as this universal good thing. But some are just not very good, I concur with the dislike of on the road and catch 22 I think they are "you had to be there books". I think page 64 is a fair wack not sure whether this is because that was the page the sex scene in "the Rats" is on or not!
as for books I didn't get into:
atonement couldn't be arsed about the characters never got to dunkirk
midnight's children lasted until 12:15 am.
cavilier and clay rather read the comic.
strangely bought a copy of best stevie smith poems can't get into those either but at least they are short.
Sophie's World
The twist at the end made me want to burn the book.
I've just checked,
and my book mark in Ulysses rests proudly on page 56. I do believe it has been there for a good 5 years now. If I ever do go back to it, I'm clearly going to have to start from the beginning but I can't quite bring myself to take out the mark.
Stuart Maconie
"Pies and Prejudice" is excellent as is "Cider with Roadies".
Enjoyed "On The Road" but can see why other people don't like it. Some of the books mentioned i've seen read the Synopsis and put it down very quickly. "The Road " i liked very much.
Books I've tried to read but just couldn't get into are too many to mention but anything by Martin Amiss i never seem to get past 3 chapters.
Though one book i thought i'd hate but loved was "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues".
I'm reading 'Words and Music' by Paul Morley
at the moment, and frankly, I'm struggling with it.
Can't decide if its pretentious, self indulgant twaddle or the most creative piece of music writing I've ever read.
Probably both.
Definately...
...not the latter.
Your assured.
The former
Every single word Paul Morley has ever written has been pretentious, self-indulgent twaddle, including "and" and "the".
mmmmmmm
I bought that one, and the one about his Dad, but I haven't got past page 1 in either of them.
Morley
Same for "Nothing" tedious, self-indulgent wank and damning of my old town of Stockport)..but knowing Morley he would take this as a great compliment.
alpha male authors make me very uncomfortable
To clarify, alpha male authors are the way I think of the equivalent of a critically accepted modern day canon, authors like John Banville, Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, the aforementioned Martin Amis and the like...you know, 'serious' authors who write 'serious' books about big 'serious' subjects. Reading them sometimes makes me feel like I'm being intellectually bullied by the popular kids. I managed to get a grand total of five pages into Banville's The Sea, read one story from a Martin Amis short story collection (Heavy Water?), and enjoyed Underworld, until the baseball game section at the beginning was over. I'm always told I should have persevered with that, but should I really?
The problem is, many of that type of author seem to be so well-respected it often feels like my failure as a reader rather than their's as a writer.
Big Bollock Books
I agree. Amis and Self make me feel like I've ducked down the wrong alley and run into some bullies. I love Auster but John Banville. Oh MY Goodness. What a turgid waste of time The Sea was. Kazuo Ishiguro was robbed. Now there's a writer ...
Underworld - you're absolutely right.
I loved the opening section at the baseball, was thrilled at the idea of a whole big thick book along similar lines... and then... and then... nothing happened, for 600 pages.
Third Policemen
I just gave up on "The third policeman" by Flann O'Brian - I was quite enjoying it, but I just couldn't be arsed to read any more of it as it didn't seem to be going anywhere - which may well be the point, but it's not a recipe to get you to the end.
Masterpiece
As are all his books, try "At-Swim-Two-Birds" but I urge you to give "The Third Policeman" another go. They're in purgatory you see.
OK I have a long journey coming up
...might be just the thing. I just bought that one about A&R men they discussed on the podcast which I'm impatient to get to, once I finish "Post office".
I nearly gave up on The Third Policeman....
As I recall, the first half is a real uphill struggle, but if you make it to the second half, you're freewheeling all the way home.
It's a great book, I reckons...
Ulysses Unravelled
I'd always struggled with Jimmy Joyce's so-called meisterwerk until the day I interviewed David Norris, probably the world's leading authority on the great man, and he read me the opening few paragraphs in a gutteral Dublin accent and suddenly it all made sense. So I'd say that this is a rare example of a classic book where the audio option may be the route to pursue. And I love the story of that night in Paris when Proust and Joyce met for their one and only encounter, sharing a taxi across town. Of what weighty subjects did such great minds converse? Er, nothing actually, not one word being spoken between them for the entire journey. Mind how you go.
BARNEY
Tokyo Year Zero
I have just given up on this - really wanted to like it - given Word's acclaim and Ellroy endorsement on cover - after 100 pages I'd had enough.
What he said
After about 120 pages of two-word paragraphs (what is this - E.J. Thribb?) he'd scratched just one louse too many for my sanity. Lazy writing of the most shameless sort: if you have very little to say, just say it again. And again.
If you have very little to say, just say it again.
If you have very little to say.
Lazy. Shameless. My sanity.
One louse.
(As for Ellroy, he's a notorious quote whore when - as now - he's "between novels". He'd probably endorse your driving licence if the price was right.)
Spot on mate!
David Peace is rubbish. David Peace is rubbish. David Peace is rubbish. Ellroy's a quote whore. If there's a quote to be whored it's Ellroy's. David Peace is rubbish.
David Peace
In total agreement with Formbyman on David Peace's latest. I chucked it after wrestling with about 80 pages which gave me nothing back. I was disappointed having enjoyed The Damned Utd and one of his Yorkshire Ripper novels.
He really needs to get over that thing of repeating certain lines over and over throughout the text.
Glass Bead Game
is one of the few books I gave up on. I even struggled through A suitable Boy - which would have been a good 250 page book, unfortunately its over a 1000 pages.
One book that I spent ages reading and really struggling over because I thought it was THE most pretentious drivel was The English Patient. However, when I got to the end I suddenly had the urge to reread it and it had transmuted into a compulsive read full of prose that read as poetry. The film was pretty rubbish though.
Don DeLillo's Underworld
I tried a number of times to get into this book but to no avail,likewise had no joy in completing "Vernon God Little" or getting anything out of it at all,so there was another one for the local charity shop.On the flip side,yesterday I purchased the John Niven "Kill your Friends" that has been bigged up,as the kids say, in these parts....was still going at 2am this morning when i had to get to sleep.It is most enjoyable so do get a copy!
Underworld
I thought it was great - marvelous opening at the baseball game and the Stones turn up in it, which is always a bonus.
Vernon God Little
given it's subject matter it wasn't enjoyable as such, but I did find it a good read. His next Ludmila's Broken English, which though I finished it, left me very confused.
Vernon God Little,
I read a couple of Chapters, it didn't grab me and I put it aside for another day. THe only thing is, I'm not sure when that day is going to be.
The Information.....
Yawn.....
Pretentious twaddle from start to finish. Amis' at his worst. Made page 49.
Captain Correlli's Mandolin was self satisfied, smug and rubbish. 20 pages. I do flick back to it occassionally just to reminisce with Nic Cage's hilarious "Wadda mistaka to make a" accent!
Captain Correlli's Mandolin
I got to page 60 and stopped. I love this thread, it feels like somebody has mentioned just about every book I've ever left.
Spook Country
William Gibson's latest, so the blurb told me, was about advertising, culture and technology in modern world. Oh Christ is it bollocks, I think I got about 60 pages into it and I can remeber enjoying Neuromancer as a younger man. If you see it coming, cross the street.
The only time...
... I've been happy to be leaving the Caribbean was when I realised that once the holiday was over I wouldn't have to read another line of John Le Carre's A Perfect Spy.
The Book Thief
We were discussing this thread over lunch today (see how The Word shapes and influences our lives!) and a friend told me that she had read to within 10 pages of the end of Marcus Zusak's wonderful novel The Book Thief but then bailed out because it was "too sad". I didn't quite know what to say...
If you've not red The Book Thief, I recommend it very highly, even though, bizarrely, you'll have to look in the children's literature section of your local book emporium to find it.
Too Sad
Yes. I reccommended William Boyd's outstanding, gripping and heartbreaking "Any Human Heart" to my friend Simon and it raelly upset him. He said it too was "too sad" and he didn't want to be depressed by a book. Read it and see if he's right.
Personally I like my books like I like my music (and my women), beautiful, gloomy and clever.
Any Human Heart
Great call. A tremendous read. What fancy literary types call a 'bildungsroman.' Spectacularly sad and uplifting.
any human heart
"'bildungsroman'". Thanks - I plan to use that regularly.
Indeed a fantastic book and I was going to mention it myself. The only writer of that generation (Amis, Barnes, Ian 'f*cking' McEwan et al) who's improved as he's got older. The others are just about unbearable now.
Back to the subject though, has anyone mentioned anything and everything by working class hero Tony Parsons? His books make excellent projectiles... isn't it about time Word did something on this fraud and charlatan?
Reading The Ulysses
...made me feel like I was sorting through paperclips, and matching the colours to a B&Q paint chart.
Espedair Street
I just gave up about three quarters through and had no interest in the outcome, never bothered with IB since. Ulysses, I couldn't get by the first 6 pages.
Espedair Street
Oh yes,I remember this one now...I concur JB,it promised much but delivered every hackneyed image of a has been musician from A to Z. Another one that was dumped half way through,life is too short.
I got this after reading another of his that was really good...sorry can not remember the title of that one! (It was read on a ski holiday with perhaps too much apres involved)
Murakami
Few scribes as hip, at least among young people in North America, as Japan's Haruki Murakami. Word readers might like to start with Norwegian Wood for its obvious reference and it's sweet coming of age story but the highest recommendation would have to go to the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Wild Sheep Chase for their wonderful melanges of popular culture, music, mystery and detective fiction. Trouble is he will then throw out the most impenetrable tosh like Hard-Boiled Wonderland & The End Of The World. A couple of chapters and it is unpickupable. Send it to the Oxfam shop? I can't do that. Ouevres are the same whether it's music or movies or books. I can't throw out Self Portrait or Saved, they keep their place on the shelf (albeit gathering dust).
Fair point...
I have a funny relationship with Murakami. I absolutely adored 'Dance Dance Dance' and 'Wind-Up Bird Chronicle', but 'Kafka On The Shore' left me cold. Still, when he's good he's untouchable.
Foolishly...
...and, to be honest, half-cut and in a hurry in Smiths just before a flight, I bought that History of Tractors in Ukrainian thing mainly because they had a big pile of them by the entrance and a poster which said how good it was. It isn't. Gave it away with 75% untouched by human eye.
Tractors
Loved it, my wife and all my friends thatI have leant it to have the same re-action, an hilarious laugh out loud book. Too bad the follow up Strawberry Fields is not as good. takes all sorts I guess. Happy reading.
I bow to your willpower, all of you...
I find it almost a point of principle to finish every book I start - I can only think of one book I was pathologically incapable of finishing - Finnegans Wake. With due respect to those who can find some worth in the book - it read to me like a string of words randomly thrown together in the hope some might form a coherent string. I lasted about ten pages.
Recently finished the Baroque Cycle of books by Neal Stephenson which was rather more of an assault course than I would have liked. But I got there in the end. Some magic sections but could have used a lot more red pencil I feel.
Oh, and Holden Caulfield - can I just add a 'me too' to the long line of people queueing up to give the little toerag a right good slap?
Mullingar House
I live around the corner from the pub where "Finnegan's Wake" takes place, in a dream, the Mullingar house. I have often left there without the ability to string words together at all.
Simon Winchester
I'm suprised he hasn't come up already in this thread. His 'A Crack in the Edge of the World: The Great American Earthquake of 1906' really wore me down. I did finish it but as this reviewer on Amazon says:
'The quake doesn't hit till p. 201 and there are 35 pages of prologue! And even after 201, he's always meandering off the subject.'
This is exactly what I thought. I was really looking forward to reading it as well. I guess I stuck with it because I kept thinking 'The Earthquake will hit soon.' The funny thing is though, I will read another of his at some point because he does cover very interesting sunjects and maybe that book was a one-off aberration.
Agree
Surgeon of Crowthorne is great though, try that one.
Trout Fishing
by J. R. Hartley is one for the anglers among us... a bit of humour and the odd anecdote woulda bin nice...
Hornby
There's a great bit in that Hornby book about books - I'm having a senior moment re the title but it's basically the one where he keeps a note of all the books he buys and reads over the course of a year - where some mate of his is wading his way through the Vikram Seth tome and is near delirious with delight when he sees the bookmark seems to be about 900 pages in. Only to realise that the kids have been playing with it and actually he's still stuck somewhere this side of page 200. The horror! And can we not forgive David Peace the odd dud for the sheer brilliance of The Damned Utd and those that went before? No? Alright then.
BARNEY
And The Ass Saw The Angel
Light holiday reading. Nick Cave conjouring up Mississippi swamp blues and Old Testament damnation by the pool in a caravan park in the South of France.
The Beach...
... was utter crap. For most of the way it was a slacker rip-off of Lord Of The Flies, and then Mr Garland suddenly seemed to realise he needed to end it somehow. Unfortunately, it was just a rushed and botched mess.
Agreed
Fortunately I bought a copy from a charity shop and when I finished it, returned it there. The moral here would seem to be use the library where loans are free.
The Beach reminded me...