The Smiley Smile Message Board

Sometimes I go through periods where I devour books endlessly. And then there are the dry spells where I'm busy with other stuff or there's just nothing I'm into. Then, there are the books I started reading and are now languishing on my shelf, waiting to be finished. I don't like to give up on books, but here are the ones that can't seem to hold my attention despite my best efforts.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (I'm all over the concept of this book, I love stuff that's kind of "out there"... and yet it has beaten me twice. Started in 2006... started over again in 2010...)

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (I'm like 3/4 of the way through, last time I picked it up was 2012. I owe it to a friend who is a massive John Irving fan to finish it, on his recommendation).

Worst. Person. Ever. by Douglas Coupland (I'm 2 years into this one. I friggin' love Douglas Coupland, and I'm pretty sure I'm enjoying this one, but I have no idea why it keeps losing me!)


What are your "I-keep-going-back-to-this-and-then-not-finishing-it" books?

I've started Ulysses a few times over the past 17 years. I'm no longer optimistic, and removed the bookmark last time I rearranged my bookshelves.

Great topic there, SCZ. I used to devour books in years gone by but I can't seem to finish anything these days. Reader's block. Sudokus, crossword puzzles and palindromes are my lot...

Right now I have Mike's book ogling me from a bedroom shelf. It's been there for weeks. I suspect I just have to pluck up enough courage to open it and start reading and it'll be okay. As long as I finish it before June, when I'm attending a concert by Mike, Bruce and the lads...   

I've actually read Ulysses. Jesus, what a broth of a book!

Finnegans Wake is another matter. Just looking at the title on the front cover scares the sh*t out of me. It probably doesn't help that mine's a cheapo copy and the paper stinks.  

Yes, Mike's book. Read up til the end of the early 90s lawsuit then stopped. Just wasn't very enjoyable. Will get to finishing it eventually.

Have actually not finished a couple of nonfiction books that I loved -  for the crazy reason that they were so good I didn't want them to end!

Another book I tried and couldn't finish was Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. It's supposed to be a classic and I'll try it again but couldn't get into the style of writing that just kept going on and on but even though it got interesting at times I only had so much time to read and how was I ever going to be able to stop since there were no paragraphs or periods so since there didn't seem to be a stopping point I had to give up etc etc etc.

Wow John K you actually read Ulysses?! Finnegan's Wake would be way beyond my old brain's abilities.

Swan song by robert mccammon
Tried to read it in high school but never could finish, it the story jumped around too much for me at the time to where I was completely lost 400pgs in. Next time i go to the book store ill look for a used copy and start again

I specifically recall two attempts at Ulysses The first time, I was about 22, fresh out of college, and proud to be reading my copy on the bus to and from work. 'See this, everyone? Ulysses! Quite a massive tome, here. I assume you're all appropriately impressed with me. Yep, I'm the smart guy.' About 350 pages in, I had to admit to myself I had literally no idea what was going on. I put it away. About five years later, I started it again, this time unwilling to "read" ahead until I understood what I'd read. I got maybe 100 pages in and admitted I didn't know what was happening anymore. Someday I should just get a study guide and read it with that. I love Joyce's other, simpler work.

Conversely, Finnegans Wake got even less effort than Ulysses. I got a really cheap used copy, opened it when I got home, got scared, and put it back on the shelf. I sold it back to a used bookstore years ago, knowing I'd never get there.

John K, I've been thinking about the best course of action for you, LOL. Read the book, get mad at Mike, be mad at Mike at the concert, but then maybe the concert eases the anger. Or go to the concert, enjoy the concert fully, then read the book and get mad at Mike... I don't know which is better!


Captain, I did this exact thing with War and Peace. Went like:

Me: "Hey everyone, look how scholarly and edu-ma-cated I am with my Bachelor's degree and my big book for smart, literary types like myself!"

Everyone: "Oh cool, what part are you at?"

Me: "The part with a list of names I can't pronounce or recall the next time I read them".

LOL. That reminds me, I didn't finish War andPeace, either... :-\

I like Tolstoy--loved Anna Karenina--and am a big fan of 19th century Russian lit in general. But W&P, just couldn't get interested.

Ha, that's the deadline I've given myself too.  I'll probably read it after Brian's, both of which come after the stuff I'm reading now.

Read Ulysses in college, and bits of it after (with the annotated guide, it helps).  Always mean to go through the whole thing again fully.

But SCZ, I have no bone to pick with Mike. I wasn't there, as a wise friend puts it. I'm sure the book and the concert will be fine----in that order. But perhaps you were only joking. ;=)

John K, thumbs up for the neutrality. I also went into Mike's book with a neutral position, for the same reason. And then the book ended up being hurled across the room a few times with cries of exasperation, LOL. But if you're able to maintain a neutral position regardless, then I tip my hat to you, sir.

Also, I'm always joking :lol Except when I'm not :P

Simple "I wasn't there" doesn't mean you can't criticize/ be terribly disappointed in what's said in book though. The other extreme "I like everything by everybody" is as bad & unrealistic as "I hate everything by everybody" ("hate" - a bit strong word but you get the drift).

A bit related to this topic, I am usually bored by descriptions of nature & behaviors of people ("Sun is shining", "It's snowing in Arizona", "he made tea", "she looked at dog from the corner of the eye", "their kid brother hit his servant"). Esp. if it's ubiquitous. I like the dialogs, discussions, debates - you know, what the characters talk about.

The Illiad. I made it to around book 4, I think. :thud

I'l keep you posted. In the meantime, Finnegans Wake has somehow relocated from its upright position on a shelf in the hallway and is now lying on my desk. H'mm.   

Wow. I remember reading the Aeneid years ago. What a story!   

Re: "Finnegan's Wake", as I understand it, the title in the cover is what frightened you? Does the story have elements of horror? I just googled it & it doesn't seem visually scary to me. Do I miss sth.?

Looking at the title reminds me of what an intense read everyone says it is. That's the only thing that's scary about it.

This is someone's annotated version of the very first page:

(http://spoonfiles.konstvet.uu.se/image/761x900/wake1029.jpg)

I wonder if John Lennon ever read Finnegan's Wake and was inspired by it?

Ha, I was thinking the same thing!
That last paragraph sort of reminds me of In His Own Write

"Humptyhillhead of humself", and "tumptytumtoes" sound like pure Lennon to me.  ;D

I totally read this in John Lennon's voice and it was the best thing ever. Someone somewhere who can do a spot-on John Lennon imitation needs to record a reading of Finnegan's Wake. Or I may just take a crack at reading it myself, in John's voice, haha.

Yes, you read it. I'd buy it. :=)

As for John's knowledge of James's work, this might shed some light on it (excuse the ridiculously long url!):

http://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=nepca&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3D%2522john%2BLennon%2522%2B%2522finnegans%2Bwake%2522%26hl%3Den%26gbv%3D2%26sa%3DX%26as_q%3D%26nfpr%3D%26spell%3D1%26ved%3D0ahUKEwjNnd_r1LnQAhXMuhoKHZ

The most recent book I almost finished but didn't was Thomas Pynchon's Vineland. I'd read both V and Gravity's Rainbow twice (extraordinary books both) but Vineland didn't grab me the way its two predecessors did.

I have another fat Pynchon tome waiting in the wings. I bought The Mason-Dixon Line on a whim at a book launch where they had been serving white wine but I don't hold out much hope for it. ;D   

This is a nice topic.  The reasons surely vary.  Some years back I got through about 150 pages of War and Peace
and decided I didn't have enough patience to keep trying to distinguish all those bloody Russian names.  Then, with
Infinite Jest, I again got through about 150 pages and decided, "I don't care at all about any of these characters."

Which I think is an interesting point.  I want to like a character, or dislike a character, or sense a key complexity in a
character, or a mysteriousness, or potential for evolution. George Saunders is purty good with those aspects...and
makes it short.

My wife and I watched the show Black Sails on the STARZ channel. 

On chance, I picked up a copy of a book of the history of pirates at the Dollar Tree called Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly. 

I was expecting a fascinating history of piracy and separating some of the myths and realities, but the writing just didn't speak to me for some reason.  It was very dense, and maybe a little too much time devoted to pirate fiction.  I did eventually finish it, but not as fast as I usually get through a book.   I read Mike Love's book, which was at least 100-150 pages longer, in less than half the time. 

Pynchon is my favourite author, and I've read everything he has written.

Mason & Dixon is such a beautiful book. Full of some of Pynchon's best prose and descriptions. Read the first few pages and savour it! If you like Gravity's Rainbow, it will hopefully resonate with you. Think of the description of the parabola of a thrown snowball as a great in-joke :)

My personal favourite Pynchon is Against the Day. A 1000-page monster of ideas, conscience, humour and changing styles. His magnum opus, imo. There is a great web resource for read-alongs, http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.co.uk/2006/12/now-single-up-all-lines.html

Vineland, and it's cousins Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge, are less satisfying to me, but still contain enough Pynchon to elevate them above most other authors' works.

Many thanks for the heads up, Loaf. I've had this "reader's block" for years now and hardly read anything of length anymore, including long posts! I'm hoping to break it with The Great Gatsby, after which, if successful, I shall give Mason & Dixon a go (sorry about getting the title wrong). 

Plenty & don't plan to finish them, too boring.

And yes, I'm now a good fifty pages into The Great Gatsby! There's hope for me yet (with the occasional push)...

Bumping this thread by blah/ meh/dullard poster SCarolineZzzzz. Read 5th time "Lord Of The Rings" & didn't finish. It's impossible to do.

M. Sholokhov "Quiet Don". I shall admit - epic novel isn't sth. I'm patient about. But, now & then I give chance to it - it's challenge, if you will. Looks like it's not meant to be sth. I'd like. Then again, like I said in the other Reading thread, am nearly exclusively interested in lines, dialogs, monologs, polilogs, sometimes inner speeches by characters, what they think about. Bottom line - I prefer plays. Classic example - A. Chekhov "Cherry Garden". Back to QD, it's 0/5.

Bumping again SCaroLoonZzzzz's thread. This time, it's "Eugene Onegin". I detest poetry - symbolic/ abstract/ nature etc. & that which tells tale. Besides, I despised each character & didn't wish to read it till the end.

Bumping shcaLOLinezzzZz's thread - Alexander Ostrovsky's "Without A Dowry" (1878). I didn't like it to the degree to continue reading.

Edit: hmm. Weirdly, JK didn't mention celebrating the OP's birthday at PS that surflowery turns 43 today. Aka "Happy 43rd Birthday!" since it's in calendar too. Interesting fact omission...

Bumping SCroonerlinezzzZ's thread - Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm". It being short, yet difficult to read thru speaks.

When I was 14 I read the first two chapters of thr first Harry Potter book. I absolutely hated it, don't really remember why, but I disliked it enough to swear off the rest of the books and all of the movies. I would probably dismiss it as a children's book if I tried going back to it now at age 33.

I've just finished teaching a three month university course on the book series!

Wow, Choc. ::) I must confess to never having read a page of anything from the series. ;D

I started The Hobbit years ago, but from what I remember of the experience, I got so pee'd off with the endless stream of visitors to Bilbo's (?) house that I gave up in despair.

Same with Dune. I guess I just don't like science fiction, although I do recall enjoying Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land...

 :lol  Sorry, I'm in one of those moods today...

(https://dynamic.indigoimages.ca/books/0140386335.jpg?altimages=true&scaleup=true&maxheight=515&width=380&quality=85&sale=8&lang=en)