It's the topic we book lovers avoid discussing, the thing we like to keep secret: books we know we should read, but just can't get into.
You know what I'm talking about: that award-winning, critically acclaimed book that everyone's talking about. The one you pick up to read, struggle through for 50 pages or so, and look longingly at the next title waiting on your to-read pile.
You want to read it. You want to enjoy it. You want to be able to talk to your friends about it. But every time you try to get going, it's like exercising. You have to concentrate and it's hard work.
I used to push through the pain and force myself to finish those books. Now, I figure life's too short, there are too many other books to read. So I give myself 50 pages, and if I'm not hooked by then, it's all over.
(A librarian friend tells me the number of pages you should give yourself to like a book should reduce the older you get.)
Of course all this has been leading up to a confession. I couldn't get into The Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The great Pulitzer Prize-winning novel published 10 years after the author committed suicide.
I really wanted to like this book, and I persevered longer than I usually would because it was loaned to me by a friend. And I know exactly why I couldn't get into it: the story's protagonist is the most obnoxious character I've ever read. I had no sympathy for him, and truly couldn't give a crap what happens to him through the story (particularly when I learned he undergoes no redemptive process whatsoever).
In fact, there were no sympathetic characters at all, leaving me very little interest in what happened to anyone.
Now, clearly, this sort of characterisation and intentional lack of redemption is a powerful way to tell a story and make a point, but apparently it doesn't necessarily engage me as a reader (and yet, I don't have the same issues with stories told on the screen - eg, Napoleon Dynamite, a movie I love).
In looking for the cover artwork to put with this post, I came across more reviews raving about this novel, and have had a fresh bout of literary guilt (promising myself I will attempt it again one day). Maybe my mistake was trying to make it holiday reading, when it clearly is not…
Am I the only one afflicted by such struggles?
You know what I'm talking about: that award-winning, critically acclaimed book that everyone's talking about. The one you pick up to read, struggle through for 50 pages or so, and look longingly at the next title waiting on your to-read pile.
You want to read it. You want to enjoy it. You want to be able to talk to your friends about it. But every time you try to get going, it's like exercising. You have to concentrate and it's hard work.
I used to push through the pain and force myself to finish those books. Now, I figure life's too short, there are too many other books to read. So I give myself 50 pages, and if I'm not hooked by then, it's all over.
(A librarian friend tells me the number of pages you should give yourself to like a book should reduce the older you get.)
Of course all this has been leading up to a confession. I couldn't get into The Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The great Pulitzer Prize-winning novel published 10 years after the author committed suicide.
I really wanted to like this book, and I persevered longer than I usually would because it was loaned to me by a friend. And I know exactly why I couldn't get into it: the story's protagonist is the most obnoxious character I've ever read. I had no sympathy for him, and truly couldn't give a crap what happens to him through the story (particularly when I learned he undergoes no redemptive process whatsoever).
In fact, there were no sympathetic characters at all, leaving me very little interest in what happened to anyone.
Now, clearly, this sort of characterisation and intentional lack of redemption is a powerful way to tell a story and make a point, but apparently it doesn't necessarily engage me as a reader (and yet, I don't have the same issues with stories told on the screen - eg, Napoleon Dynamite, a movie I love).
In looking for the cover artwork to put with this post, I came across more reviews raving about this novel, and have had a fresh bout of literary guilt (promising myself I will attempt it again one day). Maybe my mistake was trying to make it holiday reading, when it clearly is not…
Am I the only one afflicted by such struggles?
