The Books Unfinished

[metin]

Well, there are books that we've finished reading and there are some that we can't. This week I had to give up on two books: "Martin Eden" by Jack London and "Fairwell, Gulsary" by C. Aytmatov.

I've managed reading about 150 pages of "Martin Eden". I believe I'm just a bit old for such stuff. The story is already well known and I could not find any attractiveness in it. Also the Turkish translation is quite tasteless.

I endured "Fairwell, Gulsary" for 45 pages. I don't think I am an impatient reader. Yet I guess I have my own way of reading. The translation is good. But the unnecessary descriptions and flash-backs make it even more boring. Now picked up "Baudolino" by Eco and it's going pretty joyful by now.

I guess the main reason I forsake reading a book is I get the feeling that there's nothing new to me in it. So, what books have you started reading but not finished? And why?

[Stewart]

Oh, there's loads. Some that pop into my head are:

• Independent People, Halldór Laxness
• Gentlemen, Klas Östergren
• Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
• The Adventures Of Augie March, Saul Bellow
• Rabbit, Run, John Updike
• The Pendragon Legend, Antal Szerb
• Ulysses, James Joyce
• Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
• Psalm At Journey's End, Erik Fosnes Hansen
• The Complete Essays, Michel de Montaigne
• The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana, Umberto Eco
• Mr Palomar, Italo Calvino
• I Served The King Of England, Bohumil Hrabal
• Howards End, E.M. Forster
• The Silver Darlings, Neil M. Gunn
• I, Claudius, Robert Graves

The reasons are varied, but usually fall into one of these two categories:

• Completely baffled, no point going on; or
• There's something else I want to read and that takes priority.