Kevin Drum writes about books that he couldn't finish. I have a few, and they include:
- Joyce: Ulysses
- Pynchon: The Crying Of Lot 49
- Eliot: Middlemarch
- Faulkner: Light In August
- Vonnegut: Breakfast of Champions
Ulysses is obvious; nobody finishes that thing. I couldn't get into Lot 49. The writing in Middlemarch just crushed me. Light In August... I dunno, too slow. And I don't remember anything about BoC except that it put me off Vonnegut for a decade.
You?
Rise and fall of the third reich
Ulysses of course. “Mason & Dixon” by Pynchon — I mean I did finish this but I stopped understanding it about 2/3 of the way through. “The New Life” by Pamuk. Several other books but none that I remember the name of — I think these three are the only ones that I have been unable to get through but remain interested in trying again; there are plenty that I just got bored with and put down feeling like I wasn’t getting anything out of them. Loved BoC, I read it many times in high school and college.
(Ugh, “Rise and Fall” is the book that my brother-in-law spent high school and college claiming to have read without actually reading it. Never tried myself.)
Oh, “Tristram Shandy” — that definitely is on the list of books I want to be able to read, one that has stymied me many times over the years.
also, i think i read the first page or two of Finnegans Wake, before i concluded there no way i was gonna make it through that fucker.
Same here — that kind of thing doesn’t really count, right?
Got about 20 pages into Crime and Punishment before I completely lost steam. It was one of those books that I felt I should read, but realized I didn’t have much interest.
I’ve never finished Dune but am determined to keep trying.
Happening on Infinite Detox (which is a great blog, and you have got to check out this chart) reminds me that Infinite Jest is in the same category as Mason & Dixon, books that I finished without having any idea what was going on in the final third and keep meaning to reread.
oh yeah. i’ll be reading I.J. again someday, too. for that very reason.
I.D. is indeed a great blog. thanks for the tip!
The Iliad: great story, but I just couldn’t wade through the various translations.
Suetonius’ Lives of the Twelve Caesars: “I Claudius” was just a better read.
Moby Dick: kept falling asleep.
The Once And Future King: watching the train wreck of Arthur’s life was just too painful. Similar problems with Malory’s Morte d’Arthur.
Canterbury Tales. Just lost interest halfway through.
I haven’t even tried Tolstoy, Joyce, or Austen. I read for pleasure these days, and they just don’t sound fun.
The Once And Future King . i’m struggling with that one right now. but it’s all the goofy comedy around the Questing Beast that’s put me off. i guess i need to soldier on.
cleek : I’m the one who recommended TOAFK to you, so I’m a bit saddened that dear old Pellinore is not to your taste. But the work is four (or five) books, and only the first of the three (happening, as it does while Arthur is a child) is filled with the magic and romance and adult-preoccupations-are-so-absurd humor (fewmets?) of childhood.
After the sword is pulled from the stone at the end of the first book, you’ve entered as finely-crafted a tragedy as any I know.
books I couldn’t finish :
Ulysses, Finnegans Wake
The Red and the Black, Stendahl
The Magic Mountain, Mann
The Ambassdors, James
Middlemarch, Eliot (I much prefer Mrs. Gaskell’s Cranford)
Books I had to make several attempts, but I’m glad I did:
the Nicolo’ and Lymond books by Dorothy Dunnett
i liked the first book or TOAFK. it’s the second book that’s got me down. but, i haven’t given up yet – just taking a break.
Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair”
Most Vonnegut books
Most Hemingway books
and I never finished “Middlemarch” but “Adam Bede” is my favorite novel ever.
I did, however, finish “Ulysses” and “Finnegan’s Wake”–but only because I had to.
Ignatz–You should read “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” Totally delightful and it might ease you into Jane Austen.
Oh here’s one I’ve tried a couple of times and found pretty impenetrable, with the perception that this was a failing on my part: The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil. I fully expect that if I opened The Magic Mountain, I would not finish it, and would feel bad about that.
Lord of Th’ Rings.
I just got stoned ‘n’ read the Boraxo label instead.
aw man LOTR is the best… except for most of the 2nd book. and all the songs.
hey, just realized your blog was alive again. three months since your last post, of course… still…
just couldn’t wade through the various translations.
Did you check out Fagles’ Iliad? Reading it is much more like swimming than wading.
I’m tempted to list Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game as a book that has defeated me, except I can’t for the life of me remember whether I’ve ever tried reading it in English. I know I’ve been unable on multiple occasions to get much past page 50 of the German but that could just as easily be because I don’t know the language well enough, as because the prose is particularly difficult to get my head around.