I can’t even touch the books you’ve read
This is an interesting little survey about books that readers in the UK found they couldn’t finish reading. The fiction list is as follows:
1.Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
3. Ulysses, James Joyce
4. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres
5. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
6. The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
7. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
8. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
9. The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
10. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
The non-fiction list is also included in the story linked to above, but as I don’t read much non-fiction I won’t comment on that.
I do find some of the above entries odd though – for one thing, I was under the impression from the semi-coherent ravings of many born-again children, and the frenzy every time a new instalment is released, that Harry Potter was as a rule un-put-down-able. Personally, I never got more than a chapter or two into the second one.
The other two which are very odd are Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and The Alchemist. The former was a book I couldn’t stop reading until I finished it. It wasn’t exactly heavy going either, and only medium-sized for a novel of its type. The Alchemist, whatever one thinks of it, is one of the shorter books published… well, ever. I would have thought an average reader could get through it in a few days.
Some of the others are less surprising – I enjoyed Crime and Punishment, but I know a lot of people struggle to get through it (the first 50 pages are the crime, and the next 700 are the punishment, I’m told). Anyway, without further ado, my personal shortlist of books I can’t finish:
- Ulysses – Joyce – Has anyone ever actually finished it? Reeeally? I made it about a third of the way.
- War and Peace – Tolstoy – after the first hundred characters I got somewhat lost.
- Seven Types of Ambiguity – Eliot Perlman – as if real life isn’t depressing enough.
- The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom – Short, but not short enough. Preachy.
- Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie – Dense. Rushdie somehow makes sex and massacres boring to read about.
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig – makes about as much sense as many other things that came out of the 1970s, such as platform shoes. I really, really wanted to like this book, and in the end I couldn’t even finish it, let alone follow its half-cooked mash-up (allegedly) of 2000 years of philosophy.
And for good measure, an even shorter list of books which seem utterly impenetrable but are well worth the effort:
- Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon – Quite possibly the best novel ever written.
- Moby Dick – Herman Melville – Who would have thought hundreds of pages of hunting whales could be so interesting?
- Illuminatus! (and it’s sequels) – Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea – Schizophrenic, but gradually takes hold of you until you have no choice but to crash through to the other side.
Probably the most depressing thing about the survey was this, though: 55% of people surveyed said they buy books for decoration only, with no intention of reading them. The top reasons for not reading: “too tired” (48%) and “TV” (46%).
I was surprised about the Harry Potter book also (then again, I only ever bothered to read the first two in the series). I finished Seven Types of Ambiguity but I wouldn’t recommend it!
I too am surprised by the Harry Potter book, and God of Small Things. I haven’t read Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – but I have read another seemingly impossible to read De Bernierre’s Book – Birds Without Books – and it is in my top ten (possibly because I was just proud of myself for finishing it – but it IS a goodie).
Some of my “tried-my-hardest-but-just-couldn’t-get-there-books” are: Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Bill Clinton’s autobiography (shame on me!!), The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy…….and….I can’t think of any more right now.
Books for decoration?? Tut tut tut.
I will concede that Seven Types of Ambiguity is not an easy read, but it still rates as number two on my top five, right below The Magus, and directly above Three Dollars (another Elliot Pellman gem).
I’ve always thought that there is a book for every frame of mind in which you find yourself. While there is some complete rubbish out there, sometimes your experience of a book is more reflective of your state of mind, that the actual prose themselves.
I just find it amazing that anyone finds his writing style difficult – I thought it was very readable, not at all dense.
Now that is just plain weird… to me that’s one of those books I just about get through in a night, it’s that addictive.
Very true, and I’ll concede that when I attempted Seven Types of Ambiguity my state of mind probably wasn’t well-suited to it’s particular tone and themes and so on. In a weird way, it’s not that I didn’t enjoy it or find it interesting, I just didn’t feel that I wanted to go on to the end (and after all it’s loooooooooong too, especially if you’re not in the right mood).
It’s not that I find De Bernierre’s style difficult to read -but I have heard that from other people, especially about that book.
And Hitchhikers, yeah well, I hated it, what can I say. I tried very hard for about a year, at Becky’s insistence, and just couldn’t. That science-fiction-ey kind of genre doesn’t seem to agree with my constitution….. I know. I suck.
I have just read the god of small things for english at school. The book is hard to get into after a while it gets better I ended up really enjoying it. Many poeple may not like it because of the sex scenes and the violence. I would have stop reading it after the first couple of chapters but I had too.