From: spb0457@venus.tamu.edu (SubGenius)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Once I put this book down, I could not pick it up again.
Date: 9 Oct 92 00:39:00 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

Fiona Webster writes...
>Why could I not think of a book that I wasn't able to
>finish?  I could think of lots of books I had *chosen* not to finish,
>but not a one that had defeated me or frustrated me in the fashion
>being discussed on this thread.

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I can more or less agree with this (and the surrounding text which I've
so thoughtfully deleted), and have gone through more or less the same thing.
About the worst first-time experiences I've had with books are:
_Finnegan's Wake_:  First time I tried this monster I was about 15 and
	woefully ill-equipped to deal with it.  Made headway slowly out to about
	page 75 or so, and found that I was reading the words but parsing
	virtually none of it.  Wound up finishing it by reading a page or two
	at a time, putting it down, reading a couple chapters from something
	else, then attempting a few more pages of Joyce.  
	Read it with significantly less trouble in my early years of college.
_Gravity's Rainbow_:  Another novel that didn't so much confound me with 
	difficult diction or content (although it has both), but rather
	frustrated me by its resistance to being read swiftly.  First time
	through, _GR_ took me several months.
	Great novel.
_Riddley Walker_:  This is another 'un that I had to take slowly;  I'd
	read a chapter or two of Hoban, then go find something more
	pedestrian to read, then return to _RW_.
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>--because books of
>any power tend to throw me off course, tend to propel me into some sort
>of action.

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I find this to be especially true for me of Nikos Kazantzakis;  After a
couple chapters of _Report to Greco_, _Zorba the Greek_, u.s.w., I'd feel
like human jello if I didn't get out of the house for a bout of drinking
and carousing.
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>This method of reading does require a lot of bookmarks, I have to say that.
>                                   --enjoying the process,
>                                             Fiona

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That's one of those things that bothers folks I know whose idea of being an
"avid reader" is buying all the new Tom Clancy and Stephen King novels (the
second they come out in paperback [Aside:  One of my neighbors was perturbid
by my lack of enthusiasm when he showed up today waving a copy of Anne Rice's
latest angst-ridden vampire story which he had apparently gone through the
trouble of reserving when he learned of the books impending release--His 
opining that Ms. Rice is the be-all, end-all of modern writers became 
somewhat more explicable when I had to explain the concept of a "hack" to
him.  Anyway, that's the sort of person that I'm referring to here.  End
of anecdote])--seeing a shelf of books containing a good dozen or so
books with bookmarks protruding.  Seems to violate some sense of "good
conduct" they percieve in the reading of books.  Go figure, eh?






Yours etc.,




SubGenius
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books