Dosed

Quitter's Club: Don't be afraid to quit the book

Recommended Posts

Breakfast of Champions was the first Vonnegut book I read and I can definitely see where you're coming from. He was criticised for "writing too much like Vonnegut", so it's clear that his style is very unique but not for everyone. I personally think his books can go off on some really childish, stupid and uninteresting tangents but when they work they really work. I think he got a lot of attention at the time of writing because he was so unafraid to just write however he wanted, and not really stick to any traditional parameters when it comes to writing, it almost seems like a reaction against classic literature, kind of how modern art is often seen as trying to blur the lines between what is art and what isn't. And that doesn't always work, especially for someone like me. There's several books that I've read by him that I would have totally given up on if some of his other books didn't happen to be some of my favourite books of all time (and they weren't so damn short).

I personally think Vonnegut's best books are The Sirens of Titan and Mother Night. The former's concept is utterly bizarre, but not incredibly childish and is one of my favourite books ever. There's no drawings of assholes or any of the sort. It really is crazy to me to think that the same guy wrote The Breakfast of Champions. I haven't read a more beautiful book since. It's just so much more carefully written and heartfelt. Maybe that's the difference, it doesn't feel like he's trying as hard to seem like a loon. If you think you might like Vonnegut in a more grounded and character driven style then check out Mother Night, I thought it was fantastic and is one of his more (actually) dark books without all the bizarre bullshit.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I just quit Breakfast of Champions, very early on. 

 

The way it starts, with an extended section where Vonnegut tries to be clever or transgressive in looking at some bits of human culture in an alternative light, or from an outsider's perspective or something, seemed incredibly hackneyed to me and was off-putting. His observations were not interesting, and his shitty drawings of vaginas stuck in the middle of the prose didn't feel transgressive in anything but a childish way. And worst of all, it didn't seem to have anything to do with the characters or world of the novel at all, but was just a chunk of musings by the author himself.

 

Maybe it would have been more cool when it came out. Maybe it gets better further in (I "bounced off it, hard"). But I have a bunch of school and other stuff to do, so I returned it to the library. Maybe I've made a mistake?

 

 

I haven't read BoC in years, but I remember quite liking it. 

 

I guess the entire book to me was about people's fear of expressing who they are, while building increasingly inaccurate facades to deal with the world.  And so Vonnegut's non-sequiters and childish glee in things like naughty drawings are his interjection of that theme as author, expressing the same dichotomy of nature that most of his characters are incapable of doing because of possible societal repercussions.  But that element would be completely invisible to you until a ways into the book. 

 

Also I doubt any of us will ever be able to understand in context how the naughty drawings and whatnot would have felt to a 1970s reader.  I mean, we've all grown up in a world with things like South Park.  Little asshole drawings just don't seem that transgressive four decades later. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think the book reads a lot differently once you've read Eden Express by Mark Vonnegut (Kurt Vonnegut's son), an autobiographical piece detailing his break down into, and eventual recovery from, schizophrenia. I suspect that processing that experience is where a lot of BoC came from.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's been a while, but I quit super hard on You Are Not A Gadgethttp://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-Gadget-Manifesto/dp/0307389979

 

It's a book that seems pretty widely adored by technology writers, so I figured it'd be completely in my wheelhouse. It struck me almost completely as the perspective of a luddite - he posits that the ubiquity of technology and the internet dehumanizes us and enables mob culture, things that I'd agree with on a surface level but the root causes that the author attributes these symptoms to are major tenets to modern culture that more often empowers us than strips us of humanity.

 

I hate to say this about a book because it seems like a lazy comment, but the book read to me as someone trying to come off as superior and high-minded, almost religious in its declarative prose. I could barely get through a few chapters before I had to put it down.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I found Smarter than you Think by Clive Thompson to be the exact antithesis of that description. Highly recommended.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't usually quit books, but recently I gave up on Super Sad True Love Story. I heard people on the internet say it was good, but I just found it obnoxious. All the social commentary is just so on-the-nose and obvious that it's just boring. I feel like it's trying to reach a sort of 2084/Brave New World-esque feel where it feels real, while still seeming alien and scary, but I just found it took all of it so far that it became silly. The whole book reads like what a sketch comedy show would predict the future to be like. It's probably unfair comparing it to those classic books but I had no preconceptions going in as to what the book was about and I started thinking about that comparison almost immediately upon starting to read it. I was just over halfway through the book when I stopped. I'm curious as to what other people here thought of the book, as I seem to be in the minority. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't usually quit books, but recently I gave up on Super Sad True Love Story. I heard people on the internet say it was good, but I just found it obnoxious. All the social commentary is just so on-the-nose and obvious that it's just boring. I feel like it's trying to reach a sort of 2084/Brave New World-esque feel where it feels real, while still seeming alien and scary, but I just found it took all of it so far that it became silly. The whole book reads like what a sketch comedy show would predict the future to be like. It's probably unfair comparing it to those classic books but I had no preconceptions going in as to what the book was about and I started thinking about that comparison almost immediately upon starting to read it. I was just over halfway through the book when I stopped. I'm curious as to what other people here thought of the book, as I seem to be in the minority. 

 

I managed to finish reading this book, but I also did not enjoy it. You're right -- the social commentary is superficial and ineffective. The ideas are interesting, maybe even plausible, but Shteyngart doesn't develop anything well enough. He writes something like "Fox News" and "Ultra Fox News" and then calls it satire when really it's just lazy. I haven't played any of the GTA games, but from what I've heard, the "satire" they employ is on the same level as what Steyngart is capable of in this book.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I will say with books I'm much less likely to do the thing I do with video games where I get to the 90% mark, and then inexplicably stop. If I get that far in a book I'll probably finish it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's been a while, but I quit super hard on You Are Not A Gadgethttp://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-Gadget-Manifesto/dp/0307389979

 

It's a book that seems pretty widely adored by technology writers, so I figured it'd be completely in my wheelhouse. It struck me almost completely as the perspective of a luddite - he posits that the ubiquity of technology and the internet dehumanizes us and enables mob culture, things that I'd agree with on a surface level but the root causes that the author attributes these symptoms to are major tenets to modern culture that more often empowers us than strips us of humanity.

 

I hate to say this about a book because it seems like a lazy comment, but the book read to me as someone trying to come off as superior and high-minded, almost religious in its declarative prose. I could barely get through a few chapters before I had to put it down.

 

i finished this as it was so short but i certainly share your disdain. every point made seemed to be so underdeveloped and unconvincing, more about pompous posturing on lanier's behalf than making a clear and well supported argument. the funny thing is that i actually agree with a lot of the ideas on the surface, but when reading a non-fiction book that isn't going to challenge my understanding of the world i'm looking for either something that is going to add a lot more nuance to what i previously thought, or to express ideas my mind grapples with broadly in a way more cogent manner such that i can see and process the issues clearer. this managed neither.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I can't finish Dorst/Abrams' "S.".

 

It's the book of the decade, frankly, it's the book for adventure game players, it's the book for people with a degree in literature. I qualify on all counts!!

 

And I can't finish it. ARGH.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I came to realise, after two years of on and off reading, I was never going to finish Le Comte de Monte-Cristo in ye olde French. It was a staunch attempt and I persisted through 600 pages, often aided by a dictionary, but I was dwindling down. So I switched tactics and got the Gutenberg e-book on my new Kindle and am now swishing through it in English. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! I read a good five times faster, I comprehend the text twice as well and it's not nearly exhausting me as much as the French version did.

 

This is what it feels like to bite off more than you can chew, but being too stubborn to give up.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ulysses - I don't currently have the ability to enjoy this book, I've heard Dubliners is an easier way of getting into that style of writing so I think ill try that before reading Ulysses again. I don't really know why I didn't get anything out of it maybe im just a bit slow, trying to read it reminded me of trying to read Lord of the Rings when I was like 9 or 10. 

 

Game of Thrones - I really enjoyed the first few books but I sort of stopped caring after a certain amount of characters died, I think I stopped reading right as new characters were being introduced and couldn't be bothered investing time into getting over the introduction hump. Don't think I'll be returning.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I came to realise, after two years of on and off reading, I was never going to finish Le Comte de Monte-Cristo in ye olde French. It was a staunch attempt and I persisted through 600 pages, often aided by a dictionary, but I was dwindling down. So I switched tactics and got the Gutenberg e-book on my new Kindle and am now swishing through it in English. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! I read a good five times faster, I comprehend the text twice as well and it's not nearly exhausting me as much as the French version did.

 

This is what it feels like to bite off more than you can chew, but being too stubborn to give up.

 

Even at the height of my fluency, I never would have tried to tackle Monte Cristo in old French. I can see that being quite the challenge.

 

Game of Thrones - I really enjoyed the first few books but I sort of stopped caring after a certain amount of characters died, I think I stopped reading right as new characters were being introduced and couldn't be bothered investing time into getting over the introduction hump. Don't think I'll be returning.

 

I'm at this point now. I've started reading A Dance with Dragons and I'm finding I just don't care anymore. Pretty sure I'm stopping here. I can just watch the show if I want to come back to Westeros.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm thinking about reading Monte Cristo in French. I read The Three Musketeers in English and then in French, because I had owned the book for ages, but I regretted it because that book is so boring. But I've heard much better things about Monte Cristo and am quite familiar with the story, so I think going through in French would be fun.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Portnoy's Complaint - gave up about 1/4 of the way in. Flipped to last page, saw that the whole book was a set up for a punchline. Punched it in the face.

 

On the Road - made it to about 7 pages before I threw it across the room. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I went for a long stretch of grad school without doing any pleasure reading, so my read-for-fun mechanism was totally broken.  Whenever I wanted to unwind I went straight for TV or video games first.  After deciding I needed some healthier brain food I picked up A Game of Thrones... That was about two years ago.  I've stopped and re-started it about three times now, and I'm only about a third of the way through it.  I think the combination of having watched the whole show and the absolutely plodding nature of the story are keeping me from getting fully into it.  

  

I did find a better way to wean my way back to reading: re-reading all 7 of the Harry Potter books.  So good!  I may have ruined my momentum, though, because I just tried to start Dan Brown's third book, the Lost Symbol, and I am a hair's width from quitting it on account of just what a shitty writer he is.  Am I remembering his first two Langdon books through rose-colored glasses?  Was he always this bad?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I hate quitting books because I once I commit to reading something, I like to finish it (plus I cannot handle the book guilt). But the one book that I quit reading and refuse to return to is Anna Karenina. I generally am not a huge fan of Tolstoy, and that book was so infused with everything that I hate about him as a writer -- thinly-veiled author insertion characters, long scenes of peasants tending to crops -- that there was no way I was going to finish it. Give me 1000 pages of Dostoevsky's ponderous philosophy any day.

 

I've been reading this book for years. Literally. I'm stubborn and won't read anything else until I finish it, but I think I started in 2011. The only thing I set it down for was A Dance with Dragons. I'm torturing myself, but I don't read daily like I used to when I was growing up. That changed about ten years ago and I've just never gotten back in the habit, which is kind of a shame. 

 

I only have about two hundred or so pages left so I should just polish it off.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Everything I've read in the last three months, I've quit. Nothing is holding my attention and I fall asleep on the third paragraph. Chalk it up to actual, thorough exhaustion.

The books are: Catch-22 (Joseph Heller), Candide (Voltaire. It's 110 pages, and still a struggle), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce), Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf), The Inheritors (William Golding), The Dragonbone Chair (Tad Williams), and The Colour of Magic (Terry Pratchett). There's a few more, actually, but these are the more recent failures

Portrait of the Artist is one of my favourite all-time books. I'd suggest you finish it as the final third is completely different to those preceding. I loved it anyway but books are such a subjective thing.

Those I've given up on recently are Saul Bellow, American Pastoral, Wuthering Heights. Well, not given up on but found that when I put the books down I had no interest in picking them up again, I think Injust wasn't in the mood. I'll probably go back and re-read them all.

I think it's better to do that than force your way through a book you're not enjoying (for whatever reason). I did that with Les Miserables and now have in unshakeable hatred for the book, Hugo and France as a nation!

Better to put something down and return to it when you and the book are better aligned.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've been reading this book for years. Literally. I'm stubborn and won't read anything else until I finish it, but I think I started in 2011. The only thing I set it down for was A Dance with Dragons. I'm torturing myself, but I don't read daily like I used to when I was growing up. That changed about ten years ago and I've just never gotten back in the habit, which is kind of a shame.

I only have about two hundred or so pages left so I should just polish it off.

You know, there's a school of thought that states if it takes you longer than 2 weeks to read a book then you haven't really read it. I think I'd agree with this generally. Spending months picking up and putting down the same book completely breaks the flow and the chances of remembering crucial details is tiny. I think it's better to make time and bash through a book. That way, if you dislike it, the pain is over quicker as well.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have to say, most of the books in the last few posts that people have given up on are really breaking my heart. Candide? That book is so fucking funny! American Pastoral, one of the best books of the 20th century? (that's not Bellow, btw, it's Philip Roth, unless you meant a book by Saul Bellow, which would still break my heart)

 

The book I gave up on was Traffic, by Kenneth Goldsmith. I tried. I really did, but it's literally 81 pages of transcripts of the 30second traffic reports over 24 hours from radio. You know, the ones that go every 10 minutes? Just that. For 81 pages. Had a great conversation about it conceptually, in a class where literally no one (okay: one person and the prof) read the entire thing. Ugh. That book. I love conceptual literature, but wow.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Sorry, I meant to say Herzog by Saul Bellow. I'm a big fan of Philip Roth. I'll definitely read Amercan Pastoral at some stage - For some reason, I just wasn't in the mood for it when I started it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

- William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch (audiobook): Literally no idea what was going on. I suspect audiobook is not the optimal format for this.

I also tried Naked Lunch on audio and had no friggin' clue what was going on.  Except that I didn't like it!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Naked Lunch on audiobook is good because it's important to hear the words spoken aloud but bad because it confuses the structure. "I have no clue what is going on" is an understandable response to Naked Lunch in any format, but I feel like with the book it's less confusing why that is.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's not a book specifically, but I've given up on the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. I'm 6/10ths of the way through, what feels like 7000 pages in, and all of the characters I had any affinity for or interest in have either died or changed so drastically that I don't care anymore. I can't see the path to the end and I don't remember how I got to the point I am, and nothing about the prose itself is interesting enough to keep me going.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now