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Do you give up on a book you cannot get into?
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Dominic
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Oct 04, 2013 12:20PM
When I was younger much younger than today......I use to give up on a book when I lost interest. This could be after 20, 50 or 100 pages. Roll the clock forward and now I will stick with a book to the bitter end despite the enjoyment level. What do you do? Is the boy or the man right?
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I'm the other way round - the guilt I felt when I gave up on one of the Classics when I was younger, was second to none. Now, however, I've shaken off the guilt and think of all the books I'd rather be reading - so ditch the dull is my motto now!
That's good advice. I just have to sort out my angst!
Absolutely no shame in abandoning a book you're not enjoying. Life's too short. Move on to a better book.
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Yep, I too used to sit it through to the bitter end. Now each gets 50 pages minimum. That should be enough to capture my interest, right?
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Or the next one due back to the library...
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If it makes you feel better I couldn't get into Anna Karenina either. I usually like classics but not that one, or Moby Dick, for some reason. I get bored easily and I think the story was too slow to start.I tend to read a couple of chapters, if I don't like it by then I put it aside.
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However, I am a sucker for a Classic, in particular a foreign classic, and ultimately one with a wayward lead female.... (ticks all my boxes!)
Each to their own and it is at least 15 years since I read it, so who knows if I could go again on it!
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I may come back to it in a few years..
I give up books that i dont like, too many good books to spend time on one you don't like. Sometimes though I read a book passed the first few chapters and while it doesn't grap me I don't dislike it, so I keep going, then I might find I'm too far in to give up! I then might find it an effort to finish.I read all of Anna Karenina, but I have to say the last third, thereabouts, drove me nuts. If I hadn't have had just read twelve thousand pages I'd have stopped.
I 'do', but only rarely - a book has to be VERY bad for me to stop as I've found some in the past that needed to get a long way into them before they clicked for me (if I feel the need to throw the book across the room I take that as a strong sign that I need to stop reading!). I do end up finishing some that I don't enjoy (Moby Dick for one!) but I get annoyed when I start a book and don't finish it - I don't feel I've given it the full opportunity to shine. I guess the psychiatry-obsessed would say I had 'closure issues' or some such nonsen...;-)
Hahaha Paul I'd be more inclined to "blame" parents/teachers for your tenacity! It's taken me an awfully long time to break the habit of sticking with a book, regardless of how rubbishy or irrelevant it is. But kids go the other way, don't they, and sometimes have no staying power at all.
It's actually a late development, I used to have loads of books in the house that I'd given up on, with bookmarks hanging out of them. It's only in the last couple of years really that I've become more focused on finishing books that I start... though it does sometimes still take a long time for them to get finished and my shelved books are sprouting a number of bookmarks at the moment!I've bought a lot of used books with bookmarks partway through them too, so I imagine that it's hardly an uncommon situation.
My answer to this is both "yes" and "no". If it's considered a classic, I feel compelled to read on, as though a little voice inside me is saying I must be missing something. One example would be On the Road, by Jack Kerouac, which I read earlier this year. I can't say I really liked it, I found it rather boring, and none of the main characters had any redeeming qualities. But I was determined to finish it, after all it is a modern classic. I did give up on The Da Vinci Code a few years ago, but that was quite quickly, and was due to my lack of interest in the subject matter, and the irritating writing style.
I couldn't get through The Da Vinci Code either. I gave it about 200 pages, so a fair shot at it, but found it was just getting too silly. Couldn't take it seriously at all. Even the film made me laugh at its silliness.
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I'm with Jo, Anna Karenina is one of my favourite classics. I can't watch the Keira Knightley adaptation in case it sullies it.
Da Vinci Code: I could have written Paul's post!
I love that phrase "Books take flight" Lisa. I now have a marvellous mental image of soaring along with them...
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Lisa, you are a woman after my own heart! I have the film in my head, as it were, direct from the book. I think seeing KK overact it would break my heart!
Da Vinci Code...... are we all in agreement? It made the "Guilty Pleasures" pull out of 50 books we all secretly love in The Times today. Yes, I couldn't put it down but it was pretty awful really.
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New member here: I usually know within the first chapter if I'll continue reading, since a great deal of my reaction is based on the writing style. I taught literature and grammar for 31 years, so the sentences need to be woven into a strong tapestry for me.Which is why I love Moby-Dick; or, The Whale; it was the first book I read after I retired :-) The writing is also what draws me to Haruki Murakami and Neil Gaiman and Ray Bradbury. While their styles differ, they know how to weave a story that captures me.
The only book I've ever fallen in love with on the first page is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Foer took me into Oskar's mind immediately, and I never left.
Julia - Have you read Everything Is Illuminated ? I loved it - more so than Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.I don't give up easily, but think I'm persevering less now I'm older (time running out?!) and books are so readily available. I have to admit I gave up on Moby Dick.
Sometimes when I read a book that I don’t like very much or that doesn’t keep me on the verge of my chair, I take breaks. Take a breather, maybe start reading something else in the meantime, sometimes I don’t read anything at all. Then after some time (it’s not fixed, sometimes it’s few days, a week, sometimes a month), I open the book one more time and continue where I left. Most of the cases, I miraculously get more engaged in the book and usually finish it.
If I find a book really horrible from the beginning, I stop reading (that happened only 2 times this year). There is the part of me that feels bad about it, but as you guys mentioned there are so many great books waiting to be discovered, that it’s surely a pity to waste your time on something that makes you cringe.
If I find a book really horrible from the beginning, I stop reading (that happened only 2 times this year). There is the part of me that feels bad about it, but as you guys mentioned there are so many great books waiting to be discovered, that it’s surely a pity to waste your time on something that makes you cringe.
Oh how I wish I was one of those people that can just put a book down they don't like and move onto the next one! It would mean I could abandon The Satanic Verses I am currently struggling with (I just can't get into it, it's such a slow read, I have a little celebration every time the progress bar on my kindle moves up a percent!). But I feel bad abandoning a book, I don't want to upset it!
Agata, but just think of all the books out there waiting for you--they need you too!I guess I think of it the way I used to ask my children to try a new food--"Just take a bite, and try it." They always did, but I didn't force them to continue eating something that was "blucky" to them.
I'm sure The Satanic Verses will forgive you! :-)
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I know what you mean Agata - it feels ill-disciplined somehow. These days I will abandon books that aren't hitting the spot - but it always leaves me feeling a bit uncomfortable - as if I've failed in some way.I'm not a Rushdie fan - the only one I'd recommend is Shalimar the Clown - he's pretty tough going - so if I were you I think I'd put it to one side, probably for the rest of my life. If that's not working though, good luck with the Kindle countdown!
How about starting a new book and keeping the Rushdie going by reading 10 pages a day? It might take forever to finish it, but at least it won't seem quite so bad if you only spend, say, 15-20 mins a day on it.
Elizabeth, that's a good idea. I don't want to give it up, I've read every single Rushdie book and I love the weird worlds he creates. Maybe it's just a wrong time to be reading it - I've just started university (OU), so when I have time to read for pleasure I think I need something fairly easy...
That's good advice, Elizabeth (if someone can't bear to just give up.) Sometimes I'll "coast along" just giving a book a chapter a day - or 30 or so pages - and then get on to the book I REALLY want to read. It seems to sharpen up my thoughts about the dull book and sometimes it even seems to pick up!
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No no no that's completely wrong Paul - you haven't got the idea at all. You read a book INSTEAD of doing the polishing! :D
...though I am in awe of your reading speed :)
As my Granny McCoy used to say, "Oh my stars and garters!" A whole book at lunch?? Way to go, Paul :-)
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Julia wrote: "As my Granny McCoy used to say, "Oh my stars and garters!" A whole book at lunch?? Way to go, Paul :-)"What is the origin of that saying, Julia? Is it related to the flag?
I rarely read books off handedly. It's often after a long deliberation process over what I want to read, and pick it. I actually abandon books I really want to read. Like I never finished 1984, Brave New World or Pride&Prejudice. Should probably try finish them...
I'd never thought to look it up, but here's what I found: http://www.word-detective.com/2009/06..."“My stars!” (no garters) has been an expression of mild astonishment since the late 16th century, rooted in a time when astrology was taken very seriously and certain stars were thought to rule one’s fate.
I had initially assumed that the “and garters” part of the phrase was purely a joking extension of “my stars,” chosen for the “stars/garters” rhyme and perhaps for the slightly risque overtones of “garter.” But Michael Quinion of World Wide Words (www.worldwidewords.org) points out that “stars and garters” has a history all its own in Britain. Knighthoods and such honors usually come with star-shaped medals, and the Order of the Garter is the highest rank of knighthood. Thus “stars and garters” has been slang shorthand in Britain since the early 18th century for all the trappings of knighthood (“He … Despised the fools with stars and garters, So often seen caressing Chartres,” Jonathan Swift, 1731).
At some point, probably early in the 19th century, someone familiar with both the idiom “stars and garters” and the exclamation “Oh my stars!” fused the two, producing “Oh my stars and garters,” which must have struck quite a few people as enormously silly and clever, which it was. So what we have in “Oh my stars and garters” is, essentially, a 200-year old one-liner."
The Royal Star and Garter Homes for ex servicemen. I remember the one in Richmond as a child.http://www.starandgarter.org/
I can only remember giving up twice...War & Peace, holy moley. Then The Gargoyle after that really horrific scene in the first part of the book. I was brought back to the book a couple of years later by a book group and I did actually enjoy it in the end, but wished that scene hadn't been so graphic.Recently though I have been having difficulty with the Song of Fire & Ice books. I want to read them all by January (its on my 30 by 30 list!). I loved A Game of Thrones, but A Cliash of Kings saw my attention wander, and I had to take a break halfway and read something else. Now I am on A Storm of Swords and I cannot get into it. Some chapters are fantastic, but not so keen on the Dani, Jon & Bran chapters now, and I put off reading it. Perhaps its the 1123 pg length that is putting me off. But can't give up, not after doing so many other challenges. hehe
If I hate it and know I wont like, I will abandon it. But usually I give a book a lot of chances first.
I will at least try to skim through the rest just to see if anything picks up further in in the book especially if it is a high rated classic.
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Elizabeth wrote: "Absolutely no shame in abandoning a book you're not enjoying. Life's too short. Move on to a better book."Elizabeth, thank you for this advice, even though it wasn't to me. I found this page by searching how others felt when giving up on a book because i have just quit a boring book myself and the guilt was driving me mad. But you & T4bsf made me feel so much better. Life is too short and there's just so many better books out there which i couldn't stop thinking about while trying desperately to drag myself through this one. Don't ever read ''In the Lake of the Woods'' unless you like depressing / boring novels. lol Thx again
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