More giving up!

[mrissa]

There are a couple of memes going around the friendslist wherein people indicate which books on a list they have read and which they haven't finished reading. And in the, "Dance for me, monkeys!" school of lj posting, I just want to say: talk about it! Tell me why you didn't finish the ones you didn't finish! Did they bore you (and if so, how)? Confuse you (and if so, how)? Require returning to the library? Get left on a train or in a coffeehouse or an airport lounge or your cousin's backseat? Get dropped in the bath and rendered too crunkly to read? I'd far rather read why you didn't finish one book on one of those lists than have fifty of them marked whether you did without explanation.

And in the spirit of dancing for you, monkeys, I give you the reasons I have quit reading library books recently:

1. Chatty piece of nonfiction went from elementary to oversimplifying to flat-out wrong.

2. Point of view issues: the first-person omniscient is extremely difficult to carry off without making me run away, far away, very quickly. If you want to know what someone's aunt was doing at every second of every day, give a mechanism or don't use the first-person.

3. Total contempt for characters. On the author's part, not on my part. I read 50 pages and thought, "If she's so sure these people are all tiresome, petty people, what am I still doing here?"

4 (multiple examples). Mystery novels that started in the following format:
CLUNK: corpse.
CLUNK: some random trivia about our detective, such as her opinion on lima beans, Greenpeace, or the musical career of Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Sorry, folks, but, "Here is a dead body. Mary liked gorgonzola," is just not a way to get me into a book. Even though I like gorgonzola, and even though I have been known to bring it up more or less completely out of the blue (as a few people can attest from this weekend) if my need for gorgonzola overcomes my social filters. But I don't do it in fiction, is the difference.

I'm a little alarmed by this pattern showing up in more than one book. If I wasn't reading mystery novels with far better beginnings than this, I'd begin to think it was a genre convention and despair of my ability to ever write a mystery novel. As it is, it reminds me once again that I don't have book-selection protocols set up for picking mysteries the way I do for picking science fiction and/or fantasy novels. Not a surprise, since I've been working on the latter for much longer. I keep plugging away at it, but I'm not sure I'm seeing much progress.

5. Bad sex between characters. Bad sex can be all right if it's needed in context, but as the opening event of the book, I am going to need to see some reason why I should care about these people who, in this particular case of bad sex, don't care about each other. That context is going to be difficult to establish right out of the gate, there.

6. Main character is a shining gem among Philistines who do not truly understand the deep beauty of her soul but are interested in shallow, worldly things. No irony apparent. Next.

7. Author believes that beautiful imagery excuses her from making any sense whatsoever. Bad enough if I agreed with her on what images were beautiful.

There really are lots of good books I'm actually finishing; it's just that it doesn't take much time to discard the bad ones, or even just the ones that strike me wrong, so I can go through them rather quickly and send them back to the library with no harm done.

Also I have quit work on a particular short story for the time being and have picked up a different story in a different genre. It's going much better than the previous one. Hurrah for quitting.

Comments

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Sorry, folks, but, "Here is a dead body. Mary liked gorgonzola," is just not a way to get me into a book.

Were it put like that, I would totally read that book.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

I'd far rather read why you didn't finish one book on one of those lists than have fifty of them marked whether you did without explanation.

this is why i like the Mris brain.

i didn't finish the mists of avalon because i was reading it in a hospital waiting room in dallas while my ex-fiance archangelsk's mom was recovering miraculously from a brain aneurysm in september of 1998. i brought it with me because it was long and i knew i'd have a lot of time to spend. i slogged through about two days of it, but i did not like it -- ever. so when she was recovered enough for us to drive back home to lincoln, i put it away and never opened it back up. it's still sitting here on my shelf. maybe i'd like it now.

i was bored by the style of brave new world.

i think eats, shoots and leaves would be way too elementary for me based on the title alone. i think this makes me a big old editing snob.

i don't see how having watership down on your bookshelf makes you appear more erudite, even though it's my favorite book ever written.

[jenett]

I have similar issues with the list - the interesting part is why people stop.

_Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell_ is a book I deeply want to finish, but I keep getting 100 pages in, getting distracted by something (or going somewhere where hauling a massive hardcover is impractical) and not getting back into it until my brain has declared a need for lighter-weight fare for a bit. And then I come back, have forgotten all the nifty details and hints and foreshadowing, and have to start all over again.

Ok, that reason, not so interesting.

I have not yet finished The Three Musketeers in an unabridged version, because, well, _The Phoenix Guards_ takes over (and I periodically wish for more women in the Dumas doing a wider range of things). I apparently need to read Dumas in the appropriate mindset, and ideally after having read some non-fiction in the time period recently enough I can reliably keep the major figures straight.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I gave up on a novel when I realized I could predict everything that was going to happen by chapter three because the author was rehashing the most of the plot and all of the characters from his last two books. Bummer.

I returned a library book that had a female protagonist who was very nearly the only female in the book, relied on her male buddies/enemies for all motivation and self-esteem, and discovered her inner love of girly things by imitating a noblewoman and having to wear skirts and make-up. Die die die.

I could not get through a recent fantasy novel many people love because I hate novels where women practically don't exist. I have had a lifetime of reading about men having all the good adventures and the women being useless, decorative, lusty sex objects. Or evil sex objects. Chicken, fish.

I have tried to read Middlemarch three times and I can't finish it. I simply do not want to spend any time with those people.

[brooksmoses]

It sounds a lot like what happened to me with Jonathan Strange, though. I got about halfway through it, and got distracted, and ... haven't yet got back to it.

I think a large part of this is that my habits are such that I nearly always finish a book in a single sitting, and so I don't have the habits that make it possible to read books that are too large for that. ("Large" is an odd word for it. From what I remember, it's not just that it's a long book; it's also dense in ways that make it slow to read.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I will bear that in mind.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Maaaaybe you'd like it now. I wouldn't wager large sums on it, however.

I am nearly completely tone-deaf to "erudite." I had problems with this in high school: if you talk about Plato or Thomas Aquinas, people think you're showing off. I know that. But I can't really predict which things I haven't specifically blundered with will be considered showing off, and my solution was to avoid people who socialize that way.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I almost always use magazines or short story or short essay collections for my break reading from massive hardcovers for that very reason: so that I won't get immersed in something else and sidetracked from the big heavy thing.

The Three Musketeers, j'adore. But yes, special mindset required.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I had the experience of being the only girl among guys, and I do like skirts. But I try not to smarm about it, and that, as the fella says, has made all the difference.

Or at least some of it.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

I took a three month break in the middle of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell. I think it's just that kind of book. I am glad I finished it eventually, though.

It was a dark and stormy cheese plate ...

[jymdyer.livejournal.com]

=v= I've been hit with the California version of this, that not appreciating the deep beauty of one's inner gorgonzola simply proves that I'm clinging to unevolved karmic Velveeta. A 12-step program plus a few years of chanting the right mantra would make the book worthwhile.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I mostly do finish books. Meaning that I will usually continue to read a truly awful book, even while asking myself the whole time why the hell I'm bothering??!!?

However- when it's that bad, I do not buy or read any other books by the author.

I am very turned off by obvious Mary Sues, and by authors who have clearly (to me) not thought through their plots and thus all actions by everyone are arbitrary. I like things to make sense, somehow... and i don't believe in perfect people.

[zunger.livejournal.com]

The body was male, age between 30 and 35, Caucasian. He had been tied to the kitchen table with twine (very tight knots - injury to the wrists and ankles - note that in the coroner's report), his chest cavity neatly sliced open, and various organs removed. An initial examination of the dishes indicated that they had been cooked, the heart chopped and scrambled with scallions and Camembert.

Inspector Mary Davenport preferred Gorgonzola.

Sorry, point 4 just brought out my inner Bulwer-Lytton.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

Terry Goodkind, Phantom.
You may stop laughing now. I made it through a *lot* of those books. It took me a while to realize that I was dissatisfied, and then another book or two to realize I was mocking. Then there was a book that wasn't mocktacular in the same way-- though still bad-- and I ended up at Phantom out of habit and completism.
I made it about fifty pages in, and this is a high estimate, and put it down when I realized that I was reading it just so I could hate it with confidence.

I'm like cissa above in that I will finish books while snarking but not read any more of that author's work.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

I could not get through The Robber Bride because it felt like the author was cheating. While there is something to be said for different perspectives of the same scene there is something entirely different to be said about four views that vary only slightly of Every Damn Scene and that second something is, "Cheaterpants!"

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

I had to read Middlemarch in college. My take on it was that few books are good enough to justify being that bloody long and this one didn't even come close. It would have been tolerable for a 300 page novel but as it is... no.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I'm having problems often with mysteries these days. I never really understood why it was so awful to tell and not show until I saw it done, emphatically and blatantly, and the reason for the classic admonition to writers was suddenly clear. I've been running into that often in recent mysteries, and I don't quite understand why. It's not endemic to the form: not only do Sayers and Tey not do it, neither do Evanovich or Peters (either Elizabeth or Ellis). Lillian Jackson Braun (The Cat Who...) does it, though not to the point that I can't finish her books (or rather, book, the same one she's rewritten twenty times now with monior variation). Maybe her success has convinced other aspiring writers that they can get away with it?

(Speaking of Braun, that mustache doesn't fool me. Aging writer, still very attractive to the other sex, still continues writing and everyone he meets tells him how much they like his work, and then he inherits a gazillion dollars but figures out how not to have to deal with the work of managing itwhile sitll spending however much he wants. Mustache or no, Mary Sue much?)

[hypatia-j.livejournal.com]

I couldn't make it through Wuthering Heights. I found the flashback-story-from-the-old-servant format contrived, and the characters unpleasant.

This is an understatement. I despised many of the characters and wished they would all just die on the next page so I could be done with the stupid book. Then I realized I could just put it down*, and I did. I don't regret it a bit.

* Rather an epiphany really, I'm usually rather compulsive about finishing books.

[pieslut.livejournal.com]

That was the book that broke me too! Before that (and largely after) I finished every damn book I started, even if I had to keep coming back to it every couple months. But that book I put down knowing that I will never, every try to read it again. And I was so happy and satisfied. It felt like in a small way, I was getting back at the poop-head author who wrote that utter piece of drivel.
What I mean to say is that I hated it. I hated it, everyone in it, everyone who'd recommended it and the name Bronte.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Eats, Shoots and Leaves will tell you nothing that you don't already know and practise: it's a primer, not an advanced technical manual. But it's fun.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I'm a little alarmed by this pattern showing up in more than one book. If I wasn't reading mystery novels with far better beginnings than this, I'd begin to think it was a genre convention

It is a genre convention, down the carbon-copy end of the genre. Standard advice - "Introduce your mystery; introduce your character" - leads to exactly this, in the tone-deaf.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, we steer clear of hating everyone who recommends Bronte novels around here. Opine about the Brontes all you like, but some of our best friends is Bronte-lovers, and we wouldn't even mind our daughter marrying one.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But being tone-deaf is certainly not a requirement.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of the time when I was small and told my father I didn't like someone, and he told me I didn't have to. Revelation! Choirs of angels ascending and descending! I did not have to like people!

Books are a little harder, but I eventually got there, too.

[jenett]

I have read Wuthering Heights three times, all under pressure. (Summer reading and then school assignment one year, and then changing schools where it was assigned again.)

This did not make me happy. (Fortunately, I liked _Jane Eyre_ slightly more, as that was on the list.) But they're, neither of them, what I will pick up for pleasure reading.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, I'm afraid I might be doing 6. But everyone thinks like that at 15!

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

Also: there were three Brontës (and Bramwell), and they are not identical. I'm not too keen on Wuthering Heights myself but I have a distinct soft spot for Villette.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, and the author is presumably aware that the main character is not the shining paragon of all the higher virtues and a few of the higher vices that one might perceive oneself to be at 15 -- or at least not the only shining paragon of same.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Villette is my favorite so far.

[pieslut.livejournal.com]

I apologize. However, while I concede that there are many other great Bronte novels out there that I would like to read, I have never been able to bring myself to read one or even pick one up. I was just scarred too badly.

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

I'd far rather read why you didn't finish one book on one of those lists than have fifty of them marked whether you did without explanation.

this is why i like the Mris brain.


I totally concur. M'ris brain makes me laugh because it is so unrepentantly practical with a hint of whimsy.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sure, no one here is asking that you like any of them at all, or touch another Bronte novel again in your life, or etc. It's just the folks who like them who deserve politeness.

[jenett]

I'm resigned (and well trained now) to not finishing a book in one sitting, simply because I read every night before bed, and I do not reliably have 2 hours (give or take) before bed to read.

I keep wondering if the PB of _Jonathan Strange_ might not be a good investment, because it'd solve my "I don't want to read this in bed because it is big and heavy and makes my wrist hurt" issues. And the "Can't bring it with me because it doesn't fit in the bag with everything else" issues.

[joreth]

I do the same thing - the only books I can think of that I haven't finished are books that have been lost or taken back before I finished, even the truly awful books.

Oh, and hello mrissa, I found you by way of madmanatw

[joreth]

Have you heard of Shelfari? I've found it convenient to browse through my friends' bookshelves and we can chat about books we own, books we've read, books we like, books we want, etc. I also started a poly-themed book club there, but I seem to be the only one contributing so far. Other groups seem to be quite a bit more active.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

i'm afraid this made me die laughing.
bury my brains with Drunken Goat.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad that there are sites like LibraryThing and Shelfari (of which I had not heard, thanks!), because they seem like a really cool thing. I don't have anything like the computer time to use them myself right now (in case you didn't read farther into my lj: I'm going through pretty intense physical therapy for vertigo, and the PT itself increases the vertigo, so all sorts of normal things make me dizzy and sick). But I'm sure glad others are having fun with it!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hi and welcome!