Left out and drag along

[saliotthomas]

Some book you just can't get in,you can feel the literary the qualities of ithem but you just can't respond to it.
The worst is that your reading gets real slow,you have to reread sentences,pages because your mind wander off .So you don't enjoy it and it's taking ages.
Damn them books.
Strangly enough,those last thorns in the arse where all nobel prices.
The current"The interpreters" by Wole Soyinka came after Coetze and Saramago the siege of Lisbon(twice lost the damn thing and twice "nice" poeple brought it back to me,manage to loose it on the third attemps)The desert of le Clezio was not too quick or easy ether...
Maybe i'm just a dum bastard and should stick to simple stuff.
Rarely one admit to it's own limitation,but having deffinetly banished lean excuses,i might just wallow in it.

[Daniel del Real]

This is happening to me right now with Marche's Shinning at the Bottom of the Sea. Fortunately I'm reading it at the same time than Bernhard's and this one I'm really enjoying it.
It also happens with Nobel Prize winners. K?rtesz and Le Clezio are recent examples for me.

[miercuri]

It happened to me with Ben Okri's The Famished Road, 200 pages in and I was liking it less and less. I tried reading other books at the same time but the fact that they seemed so much more enjoyable didn't really motivate me to finish Okri. It also triggered my sense of guilt and I would crawl back to The Famished Road.
The same thing had happened to a friend too, I should have listened to her.

[beelzebubbles]

Could someone please explain the guilt some people feel for not completing the reading of a novel.

I just don't get it.

Is it some sort of residual holdover from being a student grind?

[Daniel del Real]

Could someone please explain the guilt some people feel for not completing the reading of a novel.

I just don't get it.

Is it some sort of residual holdover from being a student grind?

I feel that I wasn't able to handle the challenge from the writer, and I hate that feeling, specially when a lot of people praise that book

[beelzebubbles]

I feel that I wasn't able to handle the challenge from the writer, and I hate that feeling, specially when a lot of people praise that book

So it's like a duel! Have at you, Mr Joyce!

[Daniel del Real]

So it's like a duel! Have at you, Mr Joyce!

LOL :D Sort of. I always try to be a persistent writer. When I abandon a book, and it stays in my bookshelf I feel like it's looking me with terrible eyes.

[Igu Soni]

Happened to me with A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Looks like it may happen with Notes from Underground too. I'll be really pissed off if the second one happens.

[Bjorn]

I feel that I wasn't able to handle the challenge from the writer, and I hate that feeling, specially when a lot of people praise that book
Yup, I agree. In fact, a couple of times I've felt compelled to finish a novel simply because it's so bad that I need to beat it, get it behind me, and purge it from my mind. But pretty much the only thing that will get me to give up on a novel is if it's both boring and completely bland.

[beelzebubbles]

Happened to me with A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Looks like it may happen with Notes from Underground too. I'll be really pissed off if the second one happens.

Really! Notes from Underground! It's so short and the guy is having an interesting breakdown if you go in for that sort of thing. What is bogging you down?

Portrait... I started when I was a kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen. I read the phrase "He was a nicens little moocow," laughed and tossed it aside. I will probably read it one day but I harbor no guilt feelings about my teenage self's dismissal of the book.

[miercuri]

When I abandon a book, and it stays in my bookshelf I feel like it's looking me with terrible eyes.
Oh, I know this feeling. It's even worse when I return a book to the library unfinished. It pains me so much every time I fail to borrow it again, because I am always temped by something else.
It's strange though, that when I was a kid I used to start books and abandon them all the mine. I had absolutely no problem with it. The whole guilt thing kicked off in my teens.

[Daniel del Real]

Oh, I know this feeling. It's even worse when I return a book to the library unfinished. It pains me so much every time I fail to borrow it again, because I am always temped by something else.


I can't have unread books at my shelves, it's hard for me. I prefer to send them back to library if I borrow them. For the same situation I don't buy many books and have them stack if I don't have a soon purpose to read them.
Next post I'll give you the list of unread books on my personal library. By a strange situation I don't want to get rid of them either.

[Sevigne]

On first reading I hated Boswell's Life of Johnson. I kept chucking it under the bed and announcing that I was done with it forever. Within two years of that first reading it was my Book of Books, my Bible. I can still quote it, chapter and verse.

Same with Henry James. I detested him. I cursed Wings of the Dove. I consigned James to Perdition. Now he is, in literary matters, "the god of my idolatry.

Go figure!

[Sevigne]

Keep the books, Daniel. You may yet "grow into them".

[peter_d]

Happened to me with Pamuk's My name is red. There were so many details about how to precisely draw a horse and on how important it was for the artist to get blind in the end, and then, worst of all... it had soooo many pages. But I did beat it, just because I didn't want that bastard of a book get me down... (and because I wanted to know who the killer in the story was ;))

[beelzebubbles]

Happened to me with Pamuk's My name is red. There were so many details about how to precisely draw a horse and on how important it was for the artist to get blind in the end, and then, worst of all... it had soooo many pages. But I did beat it, just because I didn't want that bastard of a book get me down... (and because I wanted to know who the killer in the story was ;))

Good grief, have you folks never heard of reading the ending first.

[Igu Soni]

Really! Notes from Underground! It's so short and the guy is having an interesting breakdown if you go in for that sort of thing. What is bogging you down?

Portrait... I started when I was a kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen. I read the phrase "He was a nicens little moocow," laughed and tossed it aside. I will probably read it one day but I harbor no guilt feelings about my teenage self's dismissal of the book.
Thing about Notes from Underground is that it's all really complex, which is not helped by the fact that he is obviously speaking to a ninteenth-century audience. In my ten pages, more than once, when he's telling me what I feel, I wonder why I would be feeling that, then realise a ninteenth-century man would and then start thinking about why he would... and this is just what happens apart from all that complex lecturing. I have to stop after every five pages to let what he said settle over me, which mean I haven't quite got the flow yet, which means I'm likely to abandon it because it's too hard.

Portrait... I too picked it up at seventeen, read that line laughed and went on. Had to stop at page 20 because I couldn't keep track of the book, due to my fragmented and (at that time) low-attention reading.


Also, I hate leaving books for this reason because I feel like I'm taking the easy way out. Probably has something to do with the fact that my first piece of 'literary fiction' was so hard, it took me two months to finish.

[saliotthomas]

Good grief, have you folks never heard of reading the ending first.

Appart from detective stories then end does not often give out the escence of the story.It's the way more than the destination which we learn from.
I have not probleme giving up on books i despise or bad ones,but like with Saramago,i would put it down,take another on and come back to it.Loosing it was the only way to be get it over.
With Wole Soyinka,there is a structural building of the story that make it very blurry,vague to me.I love the characteres,and there is great parts,but i'm often lost has where or when it happens.I think i like description of surounding,when there is none(or nearly none),i can't fixe my attention.
Going back to my lithany about barroque and a need for frame in my readings.
I can feel with Soyinka is interest in the humain side and near not time for settings.Great dialogues,background of his charactere,intereactions betwin them,but no wind,smell,morning light,or sounds.
Very frustrating.Like reading in a diving suit.

[hdw]

Same with Henry James. I detested him. I cursed Wings of the Dove. I consigned James to Perdition. Now he is, in literary matters, "the god of my idolatry.

Go figure!

You would enjoy Donna Leon's Inspector Brunetti novels, about a cop in Venice and his aristocratic wife who is a part-time literature professor at the local university (like Leon herself) and who has a big thing about Henry James, "the Master". Brunetti occasionally picks up one of James's novels and tries to get into it, but always has to admit defeat in the end. I'm with him on that. He prefers reading Herodotus and Thucydides, sensible man.

Harry

[beelzebubbles]

Thing about Notes from Underground is that it's all really complex, which is not helped by the fact that he is obviously speaking to a ninteenth-century audience. In my ten pages, more than once, when he's telling me what I feel, I wonder why I would be feeling that, then realise a ninteenth-century man would and then start thinking about why he would... and this is just what happens apart from all that complex lecturing. I have to stop after every five pages to let what he said settle over me, which mean I haven't quite got the flow yet, which means I'm likely to abandon it because it's too hard.



I don't think you should be feeling what the narrator is feeling because the narrator is an alienated kook. I would try for sympathy--'that poor devil'--rather than empathy--'I know exactly what that is like.' It may be more accessible for you that way; though I see from your avatar that you have some feeling for alienated kooks.

[beelzebubbles]

Appart from detective stories then end does not often give out the escence of the story.It's the way more than the destination which we learn from.
I have not probleme giving up on books i despise or bad ones,but like with Saramago,i would put it down,take another on and come back to it.Loosing it was the only way to be get it over.
With Wole Soyinka,there is a structural building of the story that make it very blurry,vague to me.I love the characteres,and there is great parts,but i'm often lost has where or when it happens.I think i like description of surounding,when there is none(or nearly none),i can't fixe my attention.
Going back to my lithany about barroque and a need for frame in my readings.
I can feel with Soyinka is interest in the humain side and near not time for settings.Great dialogues,background of his charactere,intereactions betwin them,but no wind,smell,morning light,or sounds.
Very frustrating.Like reading in a diving suit.

I understand what you are saying, Thomas. I was responding to Peters need to finish a book he was not enjoying in order to find out the who the murderer was. Why finish when you can jump ahead if you are not enjoying the trip?

[Sevigne]

Joyce is best read in bits and pieces. I've read Ulysses through but would, in the future, only re-read certain favorite chapters.

You want to say you've read Joyce? Read The Dead. It's a long short story and well rewards the effort.

[Igu Soni]

I don't think you should be feeling what the narrator is feeling because the narrator is an alienated kook. I would try for sympathy--'that poor devil'--rather than empathy--'I know exactly what that is like.' It may be more accessible for you that way; though I see from your avatar that you have some feeling for alienated kooks.
MAJOR MISCOMMUNICATION ALERT!! (My fault, not yours)
Let me get myself straight: one of the specialties about this book is that this guy is second-guessing the feelings of his audience. That audience is a ninteenth-century audience. As a result, he second-guesses my feelings wrong. So, I start thinking of why a ninteenth-century man would feel that way (this is where I got confusing).
The other thing is that he is alienated, but there's a certain sort of logic to it (like the part in the beginning where he says the smarter you are, the more hesitant you are). That's why the writing, to me, feels very dense. Which is why I'm having trouble.
What I described in the first paragraph is something of an irritating sideshow in my head which worsens the problem of reading it.

About my feelings for alienated kooks, I'd rather not comment.;) (does anyone else think that these things wink with the wrong eye?)

[beelzebubbles]

.;) (does anyone else think that these things wink with the wrong eye?)

It is of very little moment to me whether it is the left hand or the right hand picking my pocket.

[Igu Soni]

It is of very little moment to me whether it is the left hand or the right hand picking my pocket.
Sounds like someone feels shortchanged.:D

It is of some moment to me, however, which eye my online incarnation is winking with, because that's the one I'm pretending to wink with.

[beelzebubbles]

Sounds like someone feels shortchanged.:D


No, I really enjoy being left out and dragged along. Every bump in the road is heaven for me and believe me it has been a very bumpy road. Bliss!

Beelzebubbles out.

[Daniel del Real]

Good grief, have you folks never heard of reading the ending first.

I have a friend that always read the endings (last 2 or 3 pages) and if she likes it, then she starts readint the book. For me that's unacceptable, however I have the temptation to do it once or twice.

[ferns_dad]

and, Notes has one of the best introductions, bar none.....

I quote from memory, which of course is faulty.....thus I will NOT enclose it in quotation marks

I am a sick man, I am a desperate man, I am not a nice man at all. I think there is something wrong with my liver

thus the intro to an unusual character..ecce homonunculus...could fit just about anyone from

Travis Bickle to Theodore Kaczynski ?

[Heteronym]

I have a friend that always read the endings (last 2 or 3 pages) and if she likes it, then she starts readint the book.

That's a rubbish way of deciding, since two pages of a hundred-pages-long text won't make much sense without the preceeding ones.

[beelzebubbles]

and, Notes has one of the best introductions, bar none.....

I quote from memory, which of course is faulty.....thus I will NOT enclose it in quotation marks

I am a sick man, I am a desperate man, I am not a nice man at all. I think there is something wrong with my liver

thus the intro to an unusual character..ecce homonunculus...could fit just about anyone from

Travis Bickle to Theodore Kaczynski ?

Yes, thank you. Not a type specific to the nineteenth century which was what I was trying to get at in my round about way.

[ferns_dad]

yeah, I don't find much of FMD at all dated. Maybe the relationships between men and women, but then, many of his female characters are pretty strong willed.....the one thing I don't care for in his work is the overreligiousity, but then for a guy who was dragged before the firing squad and then pardoned at the last minute, I spose religion is excusable.......

[Igu Soni]

yeah, I don't find much of FMD at all dated.

I must be horrible at explaining myself. I was trying to get at the fact that most of the things he says about humans are very true - and the character himself connects well -, which is why I'm distracted by when he tries to second-guess his reader. And because the reader he's writing to is a ninteenth century man, he second-guessses me wrong. That's that.