Thursday, August 14, 2003
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The Literary Issue: Books we couldn't finish

Okay, it's true. Unless you're some demented English prof with too much time on his hands, a few of the so-called literary classics are just impossible to get through. When reading becomes a pain-inducing chore, you just might want to find a different book. Here are some books we couldn't finish.

Geoff Schumacher

Ulysses by James Joyce. For better or worse, I'm a person who finishes books, no matter how long or tortuous they may be. Despite that practice, I couldn't handle the dense tangle that is Ulysses.

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. Let's see, a detailed genealogy of imaginary people living in an imaginary land. No thanks. Give us more hobbits, John Ronald!

Andrew Kiraly

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. Alas, there was a brief, I'm-a-sensitive-soul period in my life that left me vulnerable to the suggestions of the Pirsigian cult: "You simply must read this!" I gave Zen a whirl. What a scam. This is chicken soup for the Boomer soul, a self-help manual in Greek robes. On top of it all, motorcycles are totally gay.

Heidi Walters

Remembrance of Things Past (aka, In Search of Lost Time) by Marcel Proust (1913, first volume). Here's a passage from the "Overture" in the first volume, Swann's Way:

"For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes when I put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say 'I'm going to sleep.' And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been thinking all the time, while I was asleep, of what I had just been reading, but my thoughts had run into a channel of their own..."

Zzzz...Hu--What? Oh. See, I was about 10 when I tried to read Proust. Hard as I tried, I kept drifting into that very same sleep-channel. But now that I've confessed, perhaps I'll try it once more.

The Castle by Franz Kafka. Land surveyor K., in his chutes-and-ladders (he's always sliding back to Start) effort to get to the Castle and announce his existence to big boss Klamm, gets tangled up in amusing/terrifying affairs with spy/"assistants" and loopy women. His progress is further stalled by officials doing what "officials" do best. I followed along slowly but delightedly in this tale until about halfway through, where I too came to a complete and inconclusive halt, a-tangle in Kafka's very point. But I don't feel so bad: The Castle is an unfinished novel--even poor Kafka couldn't get all the way through it.

John Ziebell

Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant. This is the book that made me change my undergraduate major from philosophy to comparative literature. I have no idea what it's about. I have no idea what language it's in, although many of the words resemble English. I keep Kant's weighty tome around, though, because it does a noteworthy job of propping up the corner of the Craftsman tool cabinet with one missing caster.

Also, anything by Bret Easton Ellis. He might be a genius, but it's sure hard to figure out what kind. I've started most of his novels, finished none and recycled rather than sold them. I always thought disdain was a reasonable reaction to a complete absence of character development, narrative control and authorial responsibility, but maybe I'm looking at the wrong music videos and fashion magazines.

Tod Goldberg

Howl by Allen Ginsburg. Let me say this here once and for all: I don't get the Beats. Oh, yeah, I see the artistry, I see the, uh, I see, the uh, well, crap, I don't see anything. I'd no sooner finish Howl than I'd join NAMBLA...oh, wait...

Lynnette Curtis

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. This is so embarrassing. I hope none of my grad school professors--or my mother--sees this. I know it's a classic, Dickens' greatest achievement, blah blah blah. But, God, it's just so boring. I'm always drooling by Page 5. They say it takes a "mature" reader--which, admittedly, I am not--to appreciate this book. I say it takes a reader with plenty of naptime.

Mike Prevatt

Without Remorse by Tom Clancy: My teenage years were spent reading supermarket paperbacks until I recognized, mid-story, that I had zero connection to Republican propaganda like this. So, I handed Clancy's snorefest off to my parents, and started stocking up on William Burroughs and coming-of-age titles instead. Out with the Tomahawk missiles, and in with injecting smack and blowing the school's quarterback--now that's more like it!

Newt Briggs

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski: Sure, there's something to be said for experimental fiction, but House of Leaves is a marathon of vagaries: pages with a single word (sometimes upside-down), a host of references to semiotics and competing narratives (one a heavily footnoted study of an imagined movie and the other a day-to-day chronicle of the dude reading the study). Granted, I enjoyed the graphic descriptions of raunchy L.A. stripper sex, but they could only carry me to page 300--more than halfway short of the finish line.

F. Andrew Taylor

Rather than dwell on the small handful of books I've decided in mid-read weren't worth my time, I'd rather take a stab at my library of intent. These are books I would like to get to but have eluded me, as there simply aren't enough hours in the day. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. The complete works of Shakespeare (I'm way behind on my histories and tragedies). The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. Walden by Henry David Thoreau (been there, have three copies of the book, still haven't gotten to it.) Lila (the sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) by Robert Pirsig. The Bible (religion aside, much of Western literature spring in one way or another from it.) Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do by Peter McWilliams and Jean Sedillos. Plutarch's Lives. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Jennifer Government by Max Darry. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Cushingura. All of these sit accusingly on my bookshelves, mocking me. Jerks.