Ulysses by James Joyce
Why didn't I finish it?: Because it's Ulysses. Nah, but this thing was mostly over my head and trudging my way through it felt like an academic exercise.
Will I ever bother with it again: Sure, I'll give it another go someday. Because it's Ulysses.
On The Road by Jack Kerouac
Why didn't I finish it?: Good question. It's perfectly readable and stylistically impressive. The only problem was the complete and utter lack of plot or character development. That's not necessarily a deal-breaker for me (I've finished stuff that was way more aimless than this), but it does make it hard for me to care whether I ever get to the end or not.
Will I ever bother with it again: Nah. Truman Capote said, "That's not writing, that's typing." But that's not why I'll never finish this. It's just because I care that little.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Why didn't I finish it?: There's nothing wrong with this book. I just hate Levin. It's never a good thing when the most boring character in the whole book is intended as a stand-in for the author. You might as well just call the book "I Judge Everyone".
Will I ever bother with it again: Probably. I liked The Death of Ivan Ilyich, so I know Tolstoy is the man. I just have to ignore anything about this book that I dislike.
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Why didn't I finish it?: It's too long.
Will I ever bother with it again: No.
All The King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
Why didn't I finish it?: The first chapter to this book is 75 pages long. The equivalent scene in the movie takes takes like two minutes of screen time. Yeah, I found it slooooowwwww.
Will I ever bother with it again: Unlikely. Maybe it gets a hell of a lot better after that first chapter. But I just don't see why I should.
Anything by Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Herman Melville, etc.
Why?: I've got a lot of gaps to fill in my literary knowledge. Some of them, I like to keep that way.
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4 comments:
You failed to mention that Dead Souls is unfinished so you couldn't finish it even if you wanted to.
My list is...Les Miserables, that Dracula book Shelly gave me, and a few nonfiction titles I can't remember. Oh yeah, I've read all the Old Testament except Isaiah.
I tried reading The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Joyce and couldn't get into it at ALL. I want to read Joyce because, you know, he's Joyce, one of my teachers suggested I start with Dubiners, but haven't gotten around to it yet. My attention span has really suffered ever since I was born, and it's only gotten worse.
Kudos to you on at least trying to read some of those books.
Future blog post suggestions: top x favorite books, books you hated or struggled through to complete.
I agree about Portrait, AustinDM. I stopped reading Ulysses because I wasn't getting it, but I stopped reading Portrait because it sucked. There's a difference.
Thanks for the suggestions. I have arbitrarily decided to post a new blog every day, so I'm always looking for new ideas.
I stopped trying to read Zen & The Art of Motorcyle Maintenance, A Room with a View (this was a book I was listening to though so that might make a difference), The first book in the Dresden files, among others. I never finished Mists of Avalon. I really liked it in the beginning but it was just SO long and I lost interest.
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