"I quit!" -- Books I just can't finish

[Benny Profane]

高行健 / Gao Xingjian

Two days ago I started Buying A Fishing Rod For My Grandfather.

It is 121 pages long and contains six stories. I have completed five stories and have begun the last one. I made it to page 93. I will not finish this book.

The first five stories were okay, but nothing making me to want to read anything else he's written. He may have won the Nobel Prize. I don't care. I don't care if he is a six-time winner of the Ham-and-Eggs Prize. This is the sentence that made me stop:

"'What' is not to understand and 'what' is to understand or not is not to understand that even when 'what' is understood, it is not understood, for 'what' is to understand and 'what' is not to understand, 'what' is 'what' and 'is not' is 'is not,' and so is not to understand not wanting to understand or simply not understanding why 'what' needs to be understood or whether 'what' can be understood and also it is not understood whether 'what' is really not understood or that it simply hasn't been rendered so that it can be understood or is really understood..." and so on for another six lines.

To be fair, most of his prose is completely comprehensible even if not engaging in the least. This is goobledygook. Or, perhaps more precisely, crap. I have absolutely no doubt there are those out there in the world--and likely even on this board--who will defend the writing, the writer, and the book. If I--a fairly well-read, literate person--cannot even begin to parse his sentence, I am too lazy to bother with this.

Best of all are the blurbs on the back: "For all their elusiveness, these impressionistic sketches have an austere power." "Close observations concisely rendered." "Stands shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the foremost fiction of the moment." "Worth the close attention of any serious reader."

Sorry, but (apologies to Hans Christian Andersen) the emperor has no clothes.

P.S. I wonder, in the end, whether he (and others, of course) is writing for himself, for readers, or for both. That, it seems to be, is a very difficult question: who should a writer be writing for and, of course, what gives readers any right to presume to answer!

Would it be an example of linguistic ingenuity (as the motivation of the prize for him regarded)? ?

Moreover, what is linguistic ingenuity? ?

 

[Stevie B]

Would it be an example of linguistic ingenuity (as the motivation of the prize for him regarded)? ?

Moreover, what is linguistic ingenuity??

Dr. Seuss is rolling over in his grave wondering why his linguistic ingenuity was overlooked by Nobel committee members.
"How I like to box! So, every day, I buy a gox. In yellow socks, I box my gox."
(Dr. Seuss, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, 1960)

 

[asal]

tried my best for tropic of capricorn, but i failed eventually. was tremendously difficult to care about any of the characters... or to keep up with the story.

 

[bacon]

tried my best for tropic of capricorn, but i failed eventually. was tremendously difficult to care about any of the characters... or to keep up with the story.

Have you read Tropic of Cancer? Still the same horny narrator, but a classic.

 

[Ben Jackson]

Have you read Tropic of Cancer? Still the same horny narrator, but a classic.

One of the best novels written in 20th Century that I've read. Beautiful work.

 

[tiganeasca]

I read Nexus a long while ago - it is fuzzy in my mind but I remember liking it. He came across as (I hope I'm not being rude) kind of clumsy and sincere; I felt like he was trying, stubbornly, to tell the truth about everything. And I will always have a soft spot for Henry Miller just because of how much he adored Isaac Bashevis Singer. There was a gushing review by him on the back of my copy of Gimpel the Fool.

Interesting; I discovered him a long, long time ago. Forgotten exactly what books of his I've read (Colossus of Maroussi; Big Sur; something else?)...but he endeared himself to me with his extended and closse relationship with Lawrence Durrell, another long-time favorite.

 

[tiganeasca]

That is very interesting. I don't hear the name Lawrence Durrell a lot! I have to admit that my image of him comes almost entirely from the Gerald Durrell books, which do NOT paint a flattering picture of "Larry." One day I'll have to read his books.

I cannot, of course, say anything about one brother's depiction of another. I would, however, encourage you to read his books. I've read about a half-dozen or so novels, some travel lit, some essays and loved it all in varying degrees. I think the Alexandria Quartet is extraordinary, but that's me. On the other hand, his poetry completely loses me. Look forward to hearing your thoughts on him.

 

[Leseratte]

That is very interesting. I don't hear the name Lawrence Durrell a lot! I have to admit that my image of him comes almost entirely from the Gerald Durrell books, which do NOT paint a flattering picture of "Larry." One day I'll have to read his books.

Same with me! Just an anecdote out of My Family and Other Animals for Gerald DurrelL fans. Under his very special pets the young Gerald used to keep some scorpions in a small box. Well, one day the scorpions escaped and it wasn´t ease to find them. It appears that the most frightened family member was said Larry. Anyway Gerald´s books are not high literature, but the stories are funny and entertaining and he has a hang to describe animals and people. Larry is figured as a pedantic intellectual, if I remember rightly.

 

[Liam]

I think the Alexandria Quartet is extraordinary, but that's me.

Agree 100%!

 

[Liam]

I have to admit that my image of him comes almost entirely from the Gerald Durrell books, which do NOT paint a flattering picture of "Larry."

I wouldn't call it unflattering so much as humorous. The same goes for Leslie with his guns, Margo with her pimples and obsession with dieting, and of course Mother, with her constant cooking of Indian food,

 

[Ben Jackson]

I cannot, of course, say anything about one brother's depiction of another. I would, however, encourage you to read his books. I've read about a half-dozen or so novels, some travel lit, some essays and loved it all in varying degrees. I think the Alexandria Quartet is extraordinary, but that's me. On the other hand, his poetry completely loses me. Look forward to hearing your thoughts on him.

Always a brilliant work. I remembered Anders Osterling, an influential Swedish Academy member, praising the work in his 1962 Nobel report.

 

[Leseratte]

I had forgotten all about Leslie.

I don't usually look at the Daily Mail, but I was driven to google about Lawrence and Gerald Durrell and I found this - an excerpt from "The Durrells of Corfu" which was reprinted in the Mail. Apparently poor Margo felt angry at how she was portrayed in Gerald's books.

Come to it, most families have their secrets. They seem to have had a certain liberty and enough money to live as they wanted.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

I am hesitant to post in this thread, because I have finished and love a goodly numbers of the titles mentioned, but I wouldn’t want to come across as preening.

I will say that reaching the end of William Gaddis’s The Recognitions felt like summiting Everest, more so than Ulysses, Gravity’s Rainbow, Don Quixote, Faust, The Divine Comedy, ANYTHING else. I haven’t tried JR yet.

Some other books with fearsome reputations that I hope to attempt: Finnegans Wake, Marguerite Young’s Miss MacIntosh My Darling, Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans (I’ve read excerpts of this one). There are so many.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

高行健 / Gao Xingjian

Two days ago I started Buying A Fishing Rod For My Grandfather.

It is 121 pages long and contains six stories. I have completed five stories and have begun the last one. I made it to page 93. I will not finish this book.

The first five stories were okay, but nothing making me to want to read anything else he's written. He may have won the Nobel Prize. I don't care. I don't care if he is a six-time winner of the Ham-and-Eggs Prize. This is the sentence that made me stop:

"'What' is not to understand and 'what' is to understand or not is not to understand that even when 'what' is understood, it is not understood, for 'what' is to understand and 'what' is not to understand, 'what' is 'what' and 'is not' is 'is not,' and so is not to understand not wanting to understand or simply not understanding why 'what' needs to be understood or whether 'what' can be understood and also it is not understood whether 'what' is really not understood or that it simply hasn't been rendered so that it can be understood or is really understood..." and so on for another six lines.

To be fair, most of his prose is completely comprehensible even if not engaging in the least. This is goobledygook. Or, perhaps more precisely, crap. I have absolutely no doubt there are those out there in the world--and likely even on this board--who will defend the writing, the writer, and the book. If I--a fairly well-read, literate person--cannot even begin to parse his sentence, I am too lazy to bother with this.

Best of all are the blurbs on the back: "For all their elusiveness, these impressionistic sketches have an austere power." "Close observations concisely rendered." "Stands shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the foremost fiction of the moment." "Worth the close attention of any serious reader."

Sorry, but (apologies to Hans Christian Andersen) the emperor has no clothes.

P.S. I wonder, in the end, whether he (and others, of course) is writing for himself, for readers, or for both. That, it seems to be, is a very difficult question: who should a writer be writing for and, of course, what gives readers any right to presume to answer!

My immediate thought on reading the quoted passage is - Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans, to the life. I don’t suppose that Gao could be familiar with it?

 

[bacon]

I am hesitant to post in this thread, because I have finished and love a goodly numbers of the titles mentioned, but I wouldn’t want to come across as preening.

I will say that reaching the end of William Gaddis’s The Recognitions felt like summiting Everest, more so than Ulysses, Gravity’s Rainbow, Don Quixote, Faust, The Divine Comedy, ANYTHING else. I haven’t tried JR yet.

Some other books with fearsome reputations that I hope to attempt: Finnegans Wake, Marguerite Young’s Miss MacIntosh My Darling, Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans (I’ve read excerpts of this one). There are so many.

I had the same experience with The Recognitions. I had heard little to nothing about it before reading, so my reading experience was extremely frustrating; I couldn't understand why I couldn't understand! Did I suddenly develop dyslexia or something? I'm currently reading Gass's The Tunnel and it's everything I'd hoped it would be at about page 150. I'm hoping to carry that inspiration to future readings of Young's work you note above, which I have near the top of my list. Although usually I like to approach a book as unencumbered by guidance and criticism as possible, I now know there are some books that I need guidance on before reading, and I'm taking advantage of Gass's notes to his editors of The Tunnel like I did with others' notes on how to read Ulysses. So before I tackle J R at some point I may go through the Gaddis Annotations site to focus my attention and set the stage for the voyage: https://www.williamgaddis.org/jr/index.shtml

 

[Patrick Murtha]

You are clearly one for the big peaks! The Tunnel, that’s another one with quite the reputation.

Among hardcore meganovels, I also think of Joseph McElroy (Lookout Cartridge, Women and Men), Alexander Theroux (Darconville’s Cat), Gilbert Sorrentino (Mulligan Stew), Harold Brodkey (The Runaway Soul), Gil Orlovitz (Milkbottle H, Ice Never F), Stephen Dixon (Frog), D. Keith Mano (Take Five), Samuel R. Delany (Dhalgren) - there are many.

I haven’t tried those authors, but I have read early Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor and Giles Goat-Boy, and those I thought were quite approachable. (I haven’t gotten to Letters yet.) Similarly, Thomas Klise’s ambitious The Last Western is not stressful on the prose side.

 

[bacon]

You are clearly one for the big peaks! The Tunnel, that’s another one with quite the reputation.

Among hardcore meganovels, I also think of Joseph McElroy (Lookout Cartridge, Women and Men), Alexander Theroux (Darconville’s Cat), Gilbert Sorrentino (Mulligan Stew), Harold Brodkey (The Runaway Soul), Gil Orlovitz (Milkbottle H, Ice Never F), Stephen Dixon (Frog), D. Keith Mano (Take Five) - there are many.

I haven’t tried those authors, but I have read early Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor and Giles Goat-Boy, and those I thought were quite approachable. (I haven’t gotten to Letters yet.) Similarly, Thomas Klise’s ambitious The Last Western is not stressful on the prose side.

Thanks for the list, Patrick, I hadn't heard of many of these.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

You are most welcome! This is a very interesting “genre”, and I didn’t even get into the non-American examples, many of the more obscure of which have gotten good coverage at the blog The Untranslated.

Bolaño’s 2666 and Fuentes’ Terra Nostra are certainly of this type, which harks back to predecessors like Joyce and Dos Passos, and the many writers who followed in their footsteps from the 20s through the 50s. It could be argued that Gaddis’s The Recognitions, which appeared in 1955, started yet another wave of encyclopedic novels; certainly Barth and Pynchon were influenced by it.

 

[tiganeasca]

?? Halldor Laxness, Under the Glacier
I will not rate this book, primarily because I did not--and will not--finish it. I cannot. My time on earth is finite; my patience is finite. I am less and less inclined to spend that time reading books that strike me as self-indulgent exercises by their authors. I refer you to a very similar (if less argumentative) take--albeit by someone who read the entire book--in this review by nagisa. I do not agree with everything that he says but I agree with most of it. I consider 90% of what I have plodded through to be abstruse, silly, self-indulgent, absurd...I run out of words to describe my feelings. I've read just under half of it and cannot possibly imagine that finishing it will change my mind in the least. (It doesn't help that the foreword by Susan Sontag, never one of my favorite writers, is so hyperbolic as to defy comprehension.) Very disappointing, the more so since I was so impressed with Independent People, a completely and totally different kind of book.

 

[dc007777]

I couldn't understand why I couldn't understand! Did I suddenly develop dyslexia or something?

I'm glad to see other people experience this... I didn't have it while reading Gaddis but I've had it while reading Pynchon. It's like if I went word by word I can "get" what's on the page but if I read at my normal pace, nothing sticks. I've had this experience with other authors too.