Book Fail Helpline

[Aggie]

When I start a book, I generally strive to finish it (unless the library won't let me renew  ) come hell or high water. I hate putting even a bad book* down, wondering if it will all come together in the last half / quarter / whatever, and because it feels like failure.  Here's a thread to help each other figure out if that bad book is worth the slog, or if it's truly time to give up.


First victim:  Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer

I picked this up on positive reviews in the Economist; the paperback is strewn with praise for the author's writing in general, how funny the book is, yadda yadda yadda (such as 'Quite possibly the best living writer in Britain', 'his prose is the equal of anyone in the country. A national treasure').

Really, it's not a bad book.  But I am finding it horribly dull and really am not getting much enjoyment from it. The book is set half in Venice and half in Varanasi (India); I slogged through the Venice bit and am in the first few dozen pages of the latter, but it doesn't seem to be picking up.

The following passage (by the narrator) stopped me in my tracks, because it seemed like overt permission to end this torture:

After a fling with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I'd come to detest even a hint of magic realism in fiction.  As soon as I came to a passage in a novel where the the trees started talking to each other, I gave it up on the spot.

I should also note that I picked up a book of short essays/stories (semi-fictional, I think) by Jeff Dyer at the same time, and started on it first (Yoga for People Who Can't be Bothered), and didn't find it too bad for what it was; his writing works well enough for this format. I may finish that book even after dumping the novel, as it at least can be digested in small pieces. I suspect his non-fiction work might be well worth a read, but he seems to carry the exact same tone of writing in his novel, leaving it dull and lifeless.

Permission to flush? 
If anyone has anything to say in defence of this book or author as a novelist, please speak now!


For the record, and despite his relatively short novel-writing career, I'd like to offer Alex Garland as an alternative British writer who is capable both of writing INTERESTING travelogues that make you want to see the places he's describing and of achieving what Hunter S. Thompson said F. Scott Fitzgerald called the "high white note" - aesthetically beautiful passages of writing that stop you in your tracks just by the way they are written, regardless of the subject.  Not the case with Mr. Dyer, admittedly based on a couple of hundred pages. 



*_{especially novels; if a non-fiction book is crap from the start it usually stays that way, and I don't feel bad about dropping a NF if I already am very familiar with the facts presented.}

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

So, the guy didn't like García Márquez? That's enough to ban the author from my wife's list...

--
Seriously, some books take time to get into, for instance it took me a while to get into The Island of the Day Before, from Eco, but I came to like it at the end, even classics like the Magic Mountain may be difficult to digest at times, but certain books are simply not made to be read by certain people, either by style or content. If you feel the book sucks, why bother? You could be reading something else.

[Aggie]

Ayuh, especially with constraints on my reading time (beyond digesting an Economist during elimination over the course of a week, I don't have much time to read these days, and the Economist has snappier writing than this lump).  I just hate giving up on any book halfway through and missing the payoff.  Although I'm pretty sure the author already blatantly foreshadowed the 'Death' bit from the title, so I'm not likely to miss much.

Also, one wonders what one is missing when an author gets a surfeit of favourable reviews but seems dull - or is this just indicative that it's appealing to a certain segment of (mostly British) reviewers?

[Swatopluk]

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp also has Death in the title but (SPOILER ALERT ) no Colonel Blimp dies in the film and no character of that name even shows up during the about 3 hours running time.

---

In the case of Eco one has also to account for the quality of translations. The English translation of The Name of the Rose is said to be terrible while the German one is considered perfect.

[Griffin NoName]

I enjoyed the English translation of Mane of the Rose ----- but then I haven't read the German one.

A friend advised me not to start reading Hilary Mantel with her winning Wolfe Hall but begin with her Beyond Black. I am really struggling with it. It's hard to abandon it though, since a friend reccomended it.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

In the case of Eco one has also to account for the quality of translations. The English translation of The Name of the Rose is said to be terrible while the German one is considered perfect.

I should read him in Italian but, have you seen his writing? I can barely talk in Italian... So far I've read him in Spanish (and the translations are mostly fine) and once in English (The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana) and it wasn't that bad either. The Island is written in an semi archaic Italian, and the translator to Spanish used the style of the golden age, so that may account for the difficulty.

[beagle]

The following passage (by the narrator) stopped me in my tracks, because it seemed like overt permission to end this torture:

After a fling with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I'd come to detest even a hint of magic realism in fiction.  As soon as I came to a passage in a novel where the the trees started talking to each other, I gave it up on the spot.

I gave up on a Hundred years of Tedium (I think, though not much has stuck in my memory) at the point where someone, or someone's brother, grew a tail.

Never heard of Geoff Dyer.

My judgement is not to be trusted though. I thought Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity" was the most boring book ever, in contrast to the rest of the World.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

My judgement is not to be trusted though. I thought Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity" was the most boring book ever, in contrast to the rest of the World.

I've not read Hornby, but I found F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) beyond tedious.   Only to be eclipsed by Tolstoy's Anna Karenna as some of the worst tedious dreck I've been forced to slog through.

On the other hand, I found One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn enlightening.  But it was short, and to the point.  And I still, 30 years later, have some vivid imagery from the book.

[Griffin NoName]

but I found F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) beyond tedious.   Only to be eclipsed by Tolstoy's Anna Karenna as some of the worst tedious dreck I've been forced to slog through.

Disagree. Marvellous.

[Lindorm]

In the case of Eco one has also to account for the quality of translations. The English translation of The Name of the Rose is said to be terrible while the German one is considered perfect.

Interesting.

Kafka didn't really click for me until I read some of his works in their original german. After that, I loved his writings (and I agree with Salman Rushdie on one thing: Kafka is a great humourist!). I did once have a look at das Schloss /the Castle in english translation, and more or less thought that they had lost the plot completely.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

The Great Gatsby was, imo, awful. Liked A Hundred Years of Solitude, though. The imagery really struck me.


Unless I absolutely have to read it, I put a sucky book down. I put down Gone with the Wind because Scarlet made me want to kill her. If it sucks, Aggie, put it down. You can always read the last five pages of it, right?

[Aggie]

Actually, I did...  and browsed much of the remainder briefly.  It does seem to get better, I think, but not to the point of redemption.  And makes me pine even more for The Beach, despite having fairly little in common. Wrong on the foreshadowing, too, I think.

The real reason I may finish it?  I'm stuck up north for longer than expected, an appreciable part of my day is spend sitting in a truck doing SFA, and that's the only available reading material, short of buying something off the shelf at Wallyworld or the like.  Got sent out on a Monday so I don't even have my trusty Economist, which I get on Tuesday, handy!

[Swatopluk]

In case of Gone with the Wind I have to admit of only having seen the movie (despite the book being in possession of our family).
Anna Karenina I know partially because of it being read sequentially on the radio.
My knowledge of Gogol is a good deal better (but he did not write tomes of 1000+ pages).
My bookshelves contain numerous partially read books (most of them nonfiction though) but they usually get finished in the end (although that can be years).
I do books as other people do TV: channel hopping

[Griffin NoName]

The Great Gatsby was, imo, awful.

Perhaps only the english like this book?

[The Meromorph]

Any of you familiar with 'Lillith' by George MacDonald?
I've just read this Victorian Christian Fantasy novel, and I am stunned...
The book's basic premise is completely Christian, and couldn't be further from my own beliefs, but it is a superb apologia for christian mythology.
The writer was apparently an acknowledged inspiration for W.H. Auden, C.S. Lewis, C.K. Chesterton and J.R.R. Tolkien among others.
It is lyrical and enchanting. The writing style is definitely a product of its times (1800's) but yet vaults above its contemporaries.

It is available cheaply from Amazon, and the digital version is free from the Kindle Store, or Feedbooks.com

I completely commend it to your attention..