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Books That Defeated Me
| Thu Jul. 16, 2009 9:28 AM PDT
What famous books haven't you read? That's too easy a question. Tons of 'em. But what famous (or, in a pinch, reasonably well known) books have you given the old college try but just couldn't get past the first hundred pages or so? I can think of five big ones off the top of my head:
Ulysses
Moby-Dick
Bleak House
The Brothers Karamazov (twice!)
Foucault's Pendulum
I'm not sure what sets these books apart. It's not that I'm allergic to long books. I plowed through War and Peace, Les Miserables, and Infinite Jest just fine. I've read plenty of other Dickens (though I'm not really much of a fan) and nearly everything by Dostoyevsky except the Brothers K. Ulysses is famously difficult, so no surprise there, but I'm not sure why I gave up on Moby-Dick. Probably the middle third did me in. Just wasn't interested enough in whales. And frankly, I don't even remember Foucault's Pendulum, let alone why I gave up on it. And I suppose I ought to throw the Bible onto this list too, since I've often thought I should read the whole thing but then given up pretty quickly for fairly obvious reasons. How about you?
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Continued From Above
Comments
The Communist
Submitted by MacGruber on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 9:44 AM PDT.
The Communist Manifesto
Fugitive Days: A Memoir
The Audacity of Hope
Books That Defeated Me
Submitted by Esoth (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 9:49 AM PDT.
"Portrait of a Frickin' Artist as a Scatterbrained, Self-Pleased Bore" and. . . . Oh Jesus let me go back in time to stop Faulkner from writing it, "Absolom, Absolom" absolutelypositively a blackhole to swallow the universe.
White Whales
Submitted by g. powell on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 9:50 AM PDT.
In Moby Dick, it was the chapter with all of those goddamn whales ( or great fishes as Melville calls them) that defeated me twice. I should just skip the stupid chapter and give the book another crack.
Can't believe you coldn't finish Folcault's Pendulum, that's practically a comic.
The last book that I gave up on that I regret is The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. It's a good read, I like history, politics and science, but I lost momentum. Lost of track of what was going on. Still on my night table, but abandoned nevertheless.
I could never finish anything by Faulkner. Can't stand his writing, so no regrets. Guess that make me an idiot.
Only three come to mind
Submitted by Don Hosek (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 9:54 AM PDT.
Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas, some book by Rush Limbaugh that I couldn't get to the end of the first chapter of, and the Riverside Chaucer, which I'm set to make another attempt at this fall. I tend to be stubborn when it comes to books.
Three for me as well.
Submitted by Brian on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:06 AM PDT.
Two of mine are on Kevin's list: Ulysses and Moby Dick. My third is Catcher in the Rye. I've tried it twice. I can't stand Holden - he's a stupid whining self-obsessed loser. How he became a literary icon is beyond me.
You gotta read "Catcher" at a certain age.
Submitted by Cazart on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 3:25 PM PDT.
...read it when you're about 12, and you can relate to whining and self-obsession a lot more easily. Wait for your mid-life crisis, then try again.
I can't believe so many
Submitted by g. powell on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 5:21 PM PDT.
I can't believe so many people couldn't finish Catcher in the Rye. I re-read once every five years.
Catcher in the Rye
Submitted by Andree Pages (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 8:43 PM PDT.
Yes, it is for readers of a certain age, and in my experience it becomes the Bible for many male teenagers (it is still my son's favorite book, years down the road). For me it's an amazing time capsule that plugs me once again into how it felt to be an adolescent and finding out how fallible and pathetic grown-ups are (his teacher in the bath robe with his runny nose and skinny chest?). In the best of all possible worlds, one grows out of this, but I think it's good to have as a reminder. Ulysses--five stabs, maybe made it once to page 110. Ditto Moby-Dick, which has an amazing opening and so is a disappointment. But Faulkner haters? "As I Lay Daying"? Amazing, amazing book, and the characters are all from the lower end of the social scale so you don't have those up-scale Quentinesque thoughts with endless relative clauses that run on from page to page of the book that was once assigned in English 101 which was the class where you would have met her had she turned the head that captivated those who sat behind her but would have gladly kneeled before her had they etc etc...
Books I have not read.
Submitted by RubyBluebird (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 7:38 PM PDT.
Wow, I did get through "Ulysses" because I read it with a great guide though I forget the name of the guide. The Guide explains Everything. perhaps it is best to see the film at the same time. I read "Moby Dick" in one weekend and do not remember any of it which is really bad for me because I have a high retention level of a lot of what I read.
I have not read/finished "Canterbury Tales" though I would like to some day. While I love the works of Mark Twain, there are a few that are pretty dry. I read "Life on the Mississippi" and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" as well as his most famous, "Huck Finn", but am slowed down in some of his other works.
I agree with one poster that you have to read "Catcher in the Rye" at a certain age. At 12 to read it is very precocious. It is one of five books in my life that I have read more than once. I loved it and yearned to pop into NYC and Holden's whiny life.
I am a reader that virtually never puts down a book once I have started it. But I did not finish "The Gulag Archipelago" and the works of Proust. Both I would like to venture into again.
The last two are among my all-time favorites. I find the Brothers K eminently readable (it's just a long, well-written murder mystery with compelling characters!). Foucault's Pendulum is a bit tough to get into the complicated logic of but that's part of the point what with it being a conspiracy theory book. Ulysses has defeated me twice and I don't think that I will pick it up again.
Joyce's Ulysses
Submitted by idlemind on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:15 AM PDT.
I've read it twice. On the other hand, Finnegans Wake defeated me soundly after 40 pages.
books
Submitted by toxicologist (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 11:07 AM PDT.
A concordance to Ulysses makes all the difference (I've told you this before, Kevin). Had exactly the same experience of loving U. and giving up on Finnegans Wake within pages. Re-tackled Moby Dick last year for the third time and fell head over heels. IMHP, the thing about MD is that it's not a novel, and it only gives grief to think of it as such. It's a sui generis, incredibly funny, constantly INTERESTED work of art.
I'm in the same boat, with U. as one of my favorite books but not managing FW. I tried a second time after several years, with a fat crib, but no luck. (I actually got Moby Dick on my first shot and enjoyed it. I perked up at the dark humor of an early chapter, where he sees a painting and concludes that its subject is murky or meaningless. I could see this was going to be a sense of life I'd appreciate.
I like the idea of Thomas
Submitted by tHE pIKE (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:16 AM PDT.
I like the idea of Thomas Pynchon, but I can never read more than twenty pages without the idea of throwing the book against the wall and getting a drink.
Can we add to the list books we did finish but might as well not have? Many years ago I read Gravity's Rainbow followed by V. and then The Crying of Lot 49.
Now I couldn't tell you a thing about of any of them. Come to think of it, just when I finished reading them I probably couldn't have told you anything about any of them.
Hey, it was Pynchon.
Oh HELL yes.
Submitted by Cazart on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 3:26 PM PDT.
...and I feel like such an idiot for not getting it.
Gravity's Rainbow
Submitted by OhioBoy on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:17 AM PDT.
Although now that I've finally gotten through Mason & Dixon (and been glad I did), I should probably give it another try.
As far as Moby-Dick, I highly recommend to Kevin, Brian, and anybody else that they try again. The nice thing about it is, each chapter heading tells you what it's about. If it looks like an irrelevant digression from the main plotline, then go ahead and skip it. I've read it that way, and didn't really lose anything by doing it. Later I went back and read the whole thing, and while there's good stuff in there, you're better off reading just the "real" story than reading everything but not making it all the way through. It really gets picks up the pace towards the end.
I'm a three-timer on GR
Submitted by Frank Lynch (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 6:33 PM PDT.
I love it, really do. It's got a wonderful set of themes and motifs, if this will help. Note that the bad guys are all black and white (or rigid yes/no, it's there or it's not), while the good guys (and antiheros) dress in colors, deal with probabilities (the little slices between yes and no...). Also wonderful riffs on comic books, elimination of species and people, calculus, Wagnerian opera. And the anagrams, oh, the anagrams: the opening nightmare which Pirate Prentice is having about the left behind during the blitz: Pirate Prentice is an anagram for Pretirite Panic, and the preterite are society's cast-offs.
Oh MAN I love that book.
Godel Escher Back
Submitted by poliwog (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:19 AM PDT.
It was sweet like rich chocolate fudge, but just as thick and dense.
invisible man. Should I try
Submitted by tomboy (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:19 AM PDT.
invisible man. Should I try again?
Invisible Man
Submitted by Andree Pages (not verified) on Fri Jul. 17, 2009 4:55 AM PDT.
Invisible Man was one of my favorite books for a long time. He's a great writer and it contains a man's bitter heart. No wonder he never finished his second book.
Invisible Man
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jul. 22, 2009 9:22 PM PDT.
I had an incredible English teacher as my guide through Invisible Man the second time around. Its like reading a completely different book when you can see how all the themes and motifs intertwine. Like Lolita, its dense but rewarding when read with the notes. I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone who hates Faulkner.
Books that defeated Kevin Drum
Submitted by majun (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:19 AM PDT.
HA!! I got Moby Dick and Foucault's Pendulum
Of course I was once an English Lit major and took a Melville seminar, so I guess Moby Dick doesn't count (I had a grade riding on it).
I failed my first attempt on Foucault's Pendulum, but picked it up again after the advent of the WWW and searching, so I could look up all the stuff Ecco was writing about. That was enough to make the second attempt an obsession.
I've started Gravity's Rainbow three times and never made it past page 100 which isn't even warming up.
(oops that's "Bach")
Submitted by poliwog (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:20 AM PDT.
(I couldn't finish the book because it's difficult, not because I'm illiterate.)
unread classics
Submitted by hsny (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:20 AM PDT.
Foucault's Pendulum never seems worth picking up, so I haven't failed to finish it.
Foucault himself, on the other hand, is obviously very important. However, I have never made it through more than the first thirty pages of any of his books.
By the way, it's a big mistake not to put some effort into Ulysses. Try one of the Ulysses guidebooks as an accompanyment.
The guy who didn't paint George Washington!
Submitted by Frank Lynch (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 6:43 PM PDT.
Gilbert Stuart and Stuart Gilbert... One painted Washington, the other translated Ulysses into French and also wrote a great guidebook, tying the chapters to hours and organs and all... It was a big help.
The Oxen In The Sun episode (the one in the maternity word) which puts the development of language alongside the development of a fetus would stop a lot of people who didn't have faith it would all be worthwhile.
Read/didn't read
Submitted by RZ (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:21 AM PDT.
After page 150 or so, Brothers K picks up. I found an online Cliff's Notes to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Also helps if you have an edition that translates the nicknames (Dmitri = Misha - at least I think it was Misha). Alternatively, just read the chapter on The Great Inquisition and see the Brothers K. movie (with William Shatner).
I've tried Gravity's Rainbow two or three times and never got past page 150 or so.
Also quit Centenniel - yes the James Michener pop novel - with about 90 pages to go. I could have finished, just didn't want to and figured it would be cooler to say I'd quit a 900 page book after 800 pages than to say I had read a 900 page piece of junk.
Books That Defeated Me
Submitted by Tim (The Other One) (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:26 AM PDT.
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.
I tried. I really tried but it was like reading paint dry.
a book I couldn't finish
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:28 AM PDT.
I read more than 4/5th of The Satanic Verses and could not finish it.
thelrd in TEXAS
No breaking the finish line
Submitted by Frank Lynch (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 6:46 PM PDT.
The first time I labored through the full Boswell, I put it aside when I was about 100 pages from the end (about 90% through)... I realized I really hated his obsequious tone and couldn't take it any longer. Bate's was another matter, very engaging.
Don't forget Johnson's surprise when talking to someone... "Madam, you read books through?"
Books I have and haven't read
Submitted by rich vinet (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:28 AM PDT.
I concur with 4 out of 5 of Kevin's selections. The exception is Bleak House, which I thoroughly loved. Two others with which I have struggled mightily but never overcame are Darwin, Origin of Species--although I devoured Voyage of the Beagle(twice)- and Democracy in America, a book that is in my opinion, simply unreadable!.
tks rich v.
irvine, ca
ps. Henry Adams, History of the United States during the administrations of Jefferson and Madison (Library of America-2 volumes) is really great, but only doable if you skip the first six chapters of the first volume (about economic and social conditions in America in 1801) and just start with the Inauguration of Jefferson. r
Bros K
Submitted by Woof (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:28 AM PDT.
I can't believe you made it through The Idiot but not through Brothers Karamazov. There's a lot more page-turney action-y stuff in Bros K.
It took me 4 tries to get through Moby Dick, though I finally struggled through. I think it was kinda talked up as a fun adventure when I was a kid, and the sense of betrayal I found upon actually opening it up has never really left me.
Pilgrim's Progress is the one I've never made it through. I remember years ago it was named the #1 most boring classic by The Book of Lists, and I'd have to concur.
BTW, I think Foucault's Pendulum doesn't really count. It's really a very light novel, and you either get into it or you don't. I mean, there's a ton of SF novels I've started and haven't finished, but it's not because they were tough reads or anything, they just didn't interest me.
The Sound and the Fury.
Submitted by godoggo (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:33 AM PDT.
The Sound and the Fury. Didn't like it. Also the Maltese Falcon for some reason. I really liked Chandler in high school and figured I'd like the other guy. Maybe I would...
In Ullyses I liked the bit at the beginning where the internal dialog was all mixed up with his observations, and I really liked the bit that was apparently based on catechism. I'd actually recommend googling to find out which chapter it was and reading it if you can't stomach the whole book. I did think having something like 200 straight pages written in deliberately terrible style was a bit much (apparently it was a parody of somebody in particular).
To the person who couldn't finish Invisible Man, all I can say is I loved it and didn't find it hard at all.
on the nonfiction front
Submitted by junebug on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:35 AM PDT.
Andrew Mango's biography of Ataturk, and Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. A couple of friends have told me that Black Lamb isn't something you need to do cover-to-cover, and that it might be more useful to skip around the various chapters -- even taking breaks to read other stuff in between. I'll definitely revisit that, but the Mango -- probably not. The granularity of the detail, particularly as regards his military career & the campaigns in which he participated, is probably great for the specialist, but it stopped me dead in my tracks.
I've read four of the five
Submitted by MEC (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:37 AM PDT.
I've read four of the five books that defeated Kevin. Didn't read *The Brothers Karamazov* though I tried--I think it was the edition I had: small print, thin paper, mediocre translation.
When I was a grad student, we used to play a game called Humiliation, in which we had to admit to the things we hadn't read. For that reason, I never finished *Paradise Lost* so that I always had a good one to trot out (besides, Milton is SO humorless).
Any George Will
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:41 AM PDT.
Any George Will column.
Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg (raced through The Editors' version)
I was once in a room when one by one everyone of us admitted to starting Pynchon's Vineland and not coming close to finishing it.
Remembrance of Things Past -
Submitted by Red*cted (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:41 AM PDT.
Remembrance of Things Past - Proust
Magister Ludi - Hesse
Foundation - Asimov
The Hobbit - Tolkein (I loved Harvard Lampoon's "Bored of the Rings" though)
Never made it thru Satanic
Submitted by Paul Moeller (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:41 AM PDT.
Never made it thru Satanic Verses
Two books that I eventually slogged thru after several false starts (and then regretted wasting the time):
Brideshead Revisited
The Catcher in the Rye
Oh, yeah, Dune - Herbert
Submitted by Red*cted (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:43 AM PDT.
Oh, yeah,
Dune - Herbert
The Old Testament Pilgrim's
Submitted by Hedley Lamarr (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:47 AM PDT.
The Old Testament
Pilgrim's Progress is repetitive, but necessary to understand themes and references found in many subsequent works.
I'll take "Books written by
Submitted by kenga (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:47 AM PDT.
I'll take "Books written by Ayn Rand" for a nickel.
Funny, of Kevin's five, we
Submitted by David in NY (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:49 AM PDT.
Funny, of Kevin's five, we share 3, and I never tried Foucault. But Bleak House! No! A really good, readable book. I gained credibility with my wife (who has read Ulysses and Moby-Dick, though might prefer not to, and who reads 80-90 novels a year) by getting her to read Bleak House, which she loved.
Try it again, Kevin. Really!
The Satanic Verses AND
Submitted by Adoannie on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:51 AM PDT.
The Satanic Verses AND Midnight's Children -- what *is* is about Rushdie?
Finnegan's Wake - and I'm not sorry, and yes, I read and liked Ulysses
Kevin -- give Bleak House another try. It's really in Dickens' top 3, for sure, along with David Copperfield and INSERTYOURFAVORITEHERE.
big-ass books
Submitted by thersites on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:52 AM PDT.
I've never been able to read Faulkner, Joyce, Dickens, or Dostoevsky and I don't know why. I'm not afraid of "difficult" books. I've read "War and Peace" twice.
I loved "Moby Dick." You do need to know how to skim, if the mechanics of whaling don't interest you, but sweet Jesus, who in the history of the English language has ever crafted a better sentence than the one that follows "Call me Ishmael?"
OhioBoy, if you made it through "Mason & Dixon," by all means give "Gravity's Rainbow" another try. Compared to M&D it will read like a Raymond Chandler novel.
the Silmarillion
Submitted by Captured Shadow (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:55 AM PDT.
I think I gave Moby Dick a half-hearted attempt and I did finally make it through Don Quixote after three tries. I guess I should give Ulysses a shot, after all I enjoyed Wind-up Bird Chronicles.
"invisible man. Should I try
Submitted by David in NY (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:57 AM PDT.
"invisible man. Should I try again?
tomboy"
I haven't tried it, but my 21-year-old son read it in middle or high school and then reread it and loves it. So, I'd say, yes.
The Bible The Iliad Paradise
Submitted by R.Mutt (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 11:01 AM PDT.
The Bible
The Iliad
Paradise Lost
Liberal Fascism
In Search of Lost Time
I gave up reading novels
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 11:03 AM PDT.
I gave up reading novels after I read Camus' Stranger or rather the English translation of the French novel.
If a novelist cannot write as concisely as that he does not deserve the readers' attention.
Want concise?
Submitted by durakje (not verified) on Fri Jul. 17, 2009 2:36 AM PDT.
Then try Paul Auster.
