Episode 23 - When to give up on a book

[Kats]

Good evening, Simon and Gavin,

at the risk of oversharing, I have to tell you that your discussion this week was spot on the money with me..... and I think/hope the following will tickle you:

So, I listened to your podcast yesterday whilst cleaning the house. I was cleaning because it justified time away from the book I should have been reading for book club meeting tonight. Why? Because I cannot get into the book, but I cannot, CAN NOT, simply give up on it because not only would that be the defeatist thing to do, but it would be to admit that I'm simply not good enough for.... wait for it..... Charles Dickens.

I started making up white lies about why I couldn't attend book club because no way was I going to admit to the other group members that Dickens is way above my intellectual capability, but what's the point of showing up at book club when you're unable to discuss the book? Yep, Simon, I'm with you on that one, and normally I would just plough through a book club choice even if it feels like a chore, but I just couldn't read this one. Didn't understand a single paragraph in one go (apart from the famous intro). After about 12 separate attempts (Tales of two cities), I was still didn't make it past page 24, and already then I wasn't sure what was going on. Oh dear.

Anyway, I listened to you and my mind was made up. I would not go to book club. It's okay to give up on a book, life is too short, or perhaps I'll come back to this one (or try a different Dickens..... eventually), but there is no point in going if you haven't read the book etc.

Turns out I dithered too long, and two other book club members pipped me to the post.... and emailed with some half-baked excuses (jet lag after holidays, baby-sitter drop-out, blabla). We're not a big group, and it would have been quite a blow to the person who'd picked the book if one more person was not going to show up (especially as this was her first book choice)...... so -

I took Gavin's advice instead and did what some bloggers out there do (according to Gav but obviously present company excluded) and just pretended to have read the book (thanks, online Spark notes) and was an active participant in tonight's discussion (winging it like a pro!), and nobody noticed that I didn't know my a*** from my elbows what the Dickens I was on about half the time. Ha!

Excuse the long-winded message, way too much wine at book club! Same old story.

Looking forward to next week's installment - hope you have some more great tips lined up for me apart from the clean pants bit which is obviously invaluable - by the way, for women: not just clean but matching underwear is a must, too, in case of hypothetical untimely death. And fuzzfree legs. Over and out.

[Tasha]

Hahaha! Loved your post Kats! Made me laugh over my glass of wine. Cheers!

[Tasha]

I was going to try a dickens this month but as I've read one by Wilkie Collins (the woman in white), which I loved, I think I'll switch Dickens out for Collins. ;)

[Kats]

Tasha,
Glad you had a laugh... whereas I have a stinking headache..... owing to my alcoholic excesses at book club last night.
I guess I better disappear off GoodReads for a while after my "drunk dialling" equivalent last night. Oh dear. Plus I better keep my fingers crossed that my book club buddies are not members of "The Readers" group, or I'll be found out! Ooops.

I think "Great Expectations" is probably a better one so start with; Tale of Two Cities is more of a stale love story set against the historical backdrop of the French Revolution. I couldn't get into it..... but after the lively (alcohol fuelled) book club discussion last night, I am actually inspired to read it properly. At some point....

[Tasha]

Haha...Poor girl though, I've been there...not fun. ;) I actually was thinking that if I read a Dickens it was going to be GE. We'll see...

[Joanne-in-Canada]

I have absolutely no problem stopping a book, whether I have read less than 10 pages or have less than 10 pages left. I have no hard and fast rules.

However, I usually stop when one of two situations arises:
1. I have a feeling of dread when my reading time has finally arrived and I remember that I am reading THAT book and inwardly groan.
2. I realized I don't care what happens to a single character in the book. Curiosity about even a minor character can keep me going.

Sometimes I am not in the right mood for a book and will try it again later. Usually this means I am revved up and ready for a fast read and I start a book that needs to be read slowly. The one that comes to mind is Cold Sassy Tree, which was long but takes place over a very short period of time, as I recall. I had to really slow down my pace to get in the right frame of mind for the story, and it was worth it.

[Tasha]

I just remembered that I did stop reading a book once that I had invested SO much time in. It started off well, for me, but as it progressed it got worse and worse. I ended up hating it so much I started skipping pages and then I realized how ridiculous that was and just put an end to my misery by closing the book with just a few chapters left. Such torture it was!!

This is the book, as you can see it was a pretty big book too. Haha

[Elizabeth☮]

i will stop a book at any number of pages if i am just not interested in the content.

one book that i forced to read that was horrible was . ugh. it was grueling. i kept thinking the story would improve, but it never did.

so, i am all for giving up on boring books or books that don't hold your interest. life is too short. i walk out of awful movies too. why waste time?

[Elizabeth☮]

@ kats,

i love that you felt like you should "cheat" at dickens. i'm glad you pulled it off.

don't worry, i read A Tale of Two Cities two years ago, and i felt like you most of the time: huh?

the worst part is i had to teach it for a competition my students were going to be in. i used a lot of the notes offered by the study materials we received.

to me, that's not reading. that's work (and i'm an english teacher!).

[Louise]

I had that experience with Faulkner - I consider myself a good reader in English, I've read Murdoch and Dickens, and probably read more English than Danish books. But I started and read 5-10 pages of Absalom Absalom, and it might as well have been written in Greek or Russian, I had no idea what he was on about.

I had even bought a nice hardback with three of his novels, but I gave it to my friend Oliver :-)
I made a particular shelf here on Goodreads for books I've given up on for various reasons. (read: that I think a bad or dull! :-))

[Louise]

Elizabeth wrote: "i will stop a book at any number of pages if i am just not interested in the content.

one book that i forced to read that was horrible was . ugh. it was grueling. i kept t..."

I read Snow, in the days up to giving birth to our daugther, so that book always reminds me of contractions! It's such a political book, that I think you have to know a lot about Turkish politics and problems to understand it - I knew some, but not enough! :-)

[Tasha]

Simon wrote: "Tasha wrote: "I was going to try a dickens this month but as I've read one by Wilkie Collins (the woman in white), which I loved, I think I'll switch Dickens out for Collins. ;)"

Wilkie Collins be..."

I have The Moonstone sitting on my shelf just waiting to be read. Several friends here have read it this year and raved about it. I really want to read it too...maybe after some previous book commitments...

[Elizabeth☮]

Louise wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "i will stop a book at any number of pages if i am just not interested in the content.

one book that i forced to read that was horrible was . ugh. it was gr..."

i love it! now i too will think of contractions when i think of this book. and to be honest, that's what it felt like: giving birth! except at the end of the book i had no pay off.

i agree about the poltical angle.

[Becky]

Wilkie Collins beats the pants off Dickens. Fopr a start he is gripping and readable and literary all at once ;)

Now wait! How can you make that comment when you haven't read any Dickens? Tale of Two Cities put me off Dickens for 20 years, it's REALLY slow and hard. But then I got back into him and have read 3 others.Great Expectations is my favorite and I would put it right up there with The Moonstone

[Beth]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who can't get into Dickens. I had to read him in college (Great Expectations)and then a couple of months ago some of my GR friends talked me into doing a group read of Our Mutual Friend and yikes, I kept thinking to myself, "will you just get on and say it?" I understand OMF was a serial novel and he got paid by the word and it shows. Needless to say, I didn't finish the book. In fact out of 5 of us only 1 read the whole thing. It's sad because the storyline of Our Mutual Friend was interesting but I just got frustrated by how long it took to say one small thing.

[Becky]

I have tried him on several occasions Becky, can't get into him at all.
group read of Our Mutual Friend "

oops, didn't know that, Simon, sorry. . .
Oh Beth, I can so relate. . . I read OMF recently and did really enjoy it, but it didn't get exciting until page 450! I also read that it started it's serialization with 34,000 pamphlets sold, but finished with only 19,000 sold. . . so lots of contemporaries gave up too.
I heard somewhere, maybe on a Guardian books podcast, that books in the 1800s were meant to take up a lot of time, b/c people had more time and less outlets for entertainment. That helped to explain to me how in 19th century English novels they're almost 1000 pages and barely anything happens . . . you had two hours at night w/o anything to do and no TV and no internet, so the book shd take up a lot of time. . . but maybe I'm making excuses. . . my husband commented last night that Dickens doesn't need me to be his publicist. . . and besides, poor Simon is living in the UK and is sick of hearing about him so we must stop!

[Becky]

Kats wrote: "Good evening, Simon and Gavin,

at the risk of oversharing, I have to tell you that your discussion this week was spot on the money with me..... and I think/hope the following will tickle you:
..."

Kats, has your book club ever read any Friedrich Durrenmatt? A friend told me he's Switzerland's most famous. . . maybe only famous? writer. I just started The Pledge and it seems good so far. . . wondering if you have any info on that book or others. The edition our library has is a volume with five of his novels.

[Kats]

So instead of "Tale of Two Cities" I am going to read "Tales of the City". Somehow I think that this style of writing is much more up my street! My mother gave me the first of the series when I was a teenager, so I still have a copy, and hopefully this time I will 'get it' and it won't end up on my "abandoned books" shelf on GoodReads like the Dickens! :-)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/...

[Kats]

Becky wrote: "Kats, has your book club ever read any Friedrich Durrenmatt? A friend told me he's Switzerland's most famous. . . maybe only famous? writer."

Oh oh. Don't let any of my Swiss friends hear that!! Of course, Dürrenmatt is famous, and along with Max Frisch (we had the "Dickens" phenomenon in Zurich last year as Max Frisch had his 100 year anniversary) is still the most widely read Swiss author, but the most popular living Swiss author (from Zurich) is Martin Suter. He spins out a novel every other year and has had a few of them translated into English ("Small World", "Deal with the devil" etc) and made into movies. Very successful chap. Another prolific and influential writer is Federica de Cesco who is most successful with her children's and YA fiction but also writes for adults.

However, that is just the German speaking part of Switzerland. There are three more official languages (French, Italian, Romantsch), and I can't tell you who they would consider to be most famous / most read, but I'm sure it's not Dürrenmatt! :-)

Of course, the one Swiss book that is famous world-wide and an absolute must read is..... Heidi! And as I drive past "Heidiland" on the motorway every week, I've started yodelling in the car for good measure. Time for a re-read of that old classic!

[Kats]

Kats wrote: "Becky wrote: "Kats, has your book club ever read any Friedrich Durrenmatt? A friend told me he's Switzerland's most famous. . . maybe only famous? writer."


Ooops. All that blah, and I didn't even answer your question, Becky! No, in the book clubs here we've read some Max Frisch (Homo Faber) and two Martin Suter novels, but no Dürrenmatt. Will suggest it if you think "The Pledge" is a good read, thanks!

[Chris]

Kats wrote: "So instead of "Tale of Two Cities" I am going to read "Tales of the City". Somehow I think that this style of writing is much more up my street! My mother gave me the first of the series when I wa..."

Kats, I think you and I are going to get along famously! :-)) If you want to take home all six books, I have them and can give it to you! (They are paperbacks, easier to pack!) TOTC is a fabulous series, I've read it three times! I have read his two subsequent books, "Michael Tolliver Lives" and "Mary Ann in Autumn" and both have been real clunkers. So I question whether I've grown as a reader, or if Maupin has slacked as a writer.

In reference to Simon's question about when to throw in the towel, I was fascinated with this topic, as I wonder about it myself at times! If it is for my book club, I tend to stay with a book longer than I normally would, but have still set things aside when I really can't finish something (eg "For Whom the Bell Tolls." And I love Hemingway!) Personally reading, I give a book 50-60 pages. I can't justify spending time with a book I'm not enjoying with so many books out there I want to read. That said, I have stayed with books I haven't enjoyed reading longer than my requisite amount, and have ended up loving them. "A Prayer for Owen Meany" is one of them. Took me three times to get into it, but when I did, it is one of those books that has stayed with me for decades.

[Becky]

Will suggest it if you think "The Pledge" is a good read, thanks! ."
Hi Kats, it's taken me a bit to get back to you b/c I was only going to read The Pledge, but good hooked and read all 5 novels. I'd definitely recommend The Pledge, also made into a movie directed by Sean Penn starring Jack Nicholson and Benicio del Toro, haven't seen it though. All are under 100 pages long, so you might want to combine it with one of the other 3 that I really liked; The Judge and the Hangman, Suspicion (sometimes called The Quarry), and A Dangerous Game. . . the first and third I liked best and the third might make for a good discussion - about a salesman who stays the night at a stranger's house and is put through a trial of his sins. Worth it just to read about someone having a heart attack due to the Fohn! (for those of you w/o a knowledge of the wacky Swiss, the "Fohn" is this "wind" that comes at certain times a year that they insist affects their mood and health and is blamed for all sorts of ills). Anyway, let me know what you all think if it gets picked for book club. THe blurbs always say "Kafka-esque" and I don't know Kafka so I can't comment. But Andrew has just read The Trial so maybe he can tell us what "Kafka-esque" actually means so that next time we hear it we can nod knowingly.
Becky

[Melissa]

My TBR stack is huge. There's probably no chance of me ever getting all the books in that stack read. For that reason alone, I have absolutely no problem quitting on a book that doesn't interest me. There's just too much more out there to read. :)

[Adam]

I would like to thank the podcast and the people on this thread who have managed to make me feel not bad about giving up on a book. I have been reading The Satanic Verses for 2 days and have just about had enough of it so I am going to put it down and try and read something else instead.

[Adam]

I did at first but then I thought about it and think that if I don't like a book then why am I still reading it when there are lots of other books out to there to discover.

[Tasha]

Simon wrote: "Never feel bad about giving up on a book. It could just be timing or it could just be you don't like it! Think of it less as giving up on a bad book and more allowing yourself to find a good one!"

I agree! It took me some time to actually get comfortable with this idea, but it is too true!

[[deleted user]]

I've heard a lot of people have different "rules" about when to give up on a book (e.g. their age in page numbers, 50 pages in, the first chapter, etc.) I can usually tell within an opening paragraph or page/first ten minutes of an audio how the book is going to fare with me. Of course, this hasn't saved me from books that had great openings, only to have poorly written endings! There had been times I had been tempted to finish a bad book because I had hoped that there would be something redeemable about it; but after trying that a couple times of times, I learned to trust my first impressions. I won't review a book I haven't finished; but I will rant a bit on twitter :-)

When I really need to finish a book for whatever reason and I'm having difficulty with it, I either go to the audio edition or; I read the Cliff's Notes/Spark Notes to help me through. Some books also have discussion guides in the back and/or an Introduction written by an academic, though I find the latter often contains spoilers (OTOH, sometime I need to know the end first to understand where the book is going!)

As for discussing a book you actually haven't read for book club, the best defense is a strong offense: Instigate the questions and prompt others for their reactions! Discuss the opening lines (or the illustrations or the cover art or one detail in the text like the food) extensively. And, yes, IRL wine always helps :-)