Going back to a book after a long break and forgetting what the plot is

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I got to chapter 36 in Sense and Sensibility (and found it dull as anything) and then stopped. I picked it up a month later, and have COMPLETLY forgot the plot. My bookmark is in the same place, bt the words make no sense as I read on.

Its well annoying - I've never read any Jane Austen before, and I wanted to finish one so I could have an opinion on it. Howver, since iI was finding it really dull, maybe its a good thing - I'll start Animal Farm tonight.

C/D?

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 16:37 (twenty-one years ago)

ha ha ha PAGING TOM ROBBINS TO THREAD

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 16:48 (twenty-one years ago)

"after a long break" = overnight for me

― jones (actual), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 16:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I always tend to forget the plot after a long while (unless the book was great, to begin with). Nowt Dud about that---unless you have to write a report about it.

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 16:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I wouldn't leave a book like that. If I didn't have the enthusiasm to cintinue to the end, I would abandon it completely.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 17:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I last week picked up the copy of The Subtle Knife which I'd gotten a little bit into a few months ago, and it went from "he'd had trouble with his mother being mentally unwell" to "he had to find a small box before the bad men came" to "and now he was on the run having killed a man", and I thought, typical bloody Pullman stylistic glitter to not tell us how he killed the guy or whether he found the box. Then I went back and saw that he found the box and killed the guy in the first few pages, and the rest was just filling in. I'd completely forgotten.

Then I went back to disliking it for the stylistic bobbins that it does have :)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 17:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd read about half of Soldier of a Great War (400 pages or so), but had to return it to the library because I'd already renewed it. And then forgot about it for a bit.

I'd really enjoyed what I had read of it, so I recently took it out from the library again to realize that I remembered just enough of the plot/characters to be interested in it, but didn't remember enough to pick up where I'd left off. Aargh.

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 18:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm with Martin on this one, if I don't feel like finishing it, I just stop reading it.

― NA (Nick A.), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 18:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I never have this problem since I only read Betty & Veronica

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 18:06 (twenty-one years ago)

gave up the corrections during the cruise ship chapter. worth finishing?

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 18:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Jane Austen's books have fallen into a strange position. They are truly masterly pieces of fiction, full of gentle, ironically detached humor and insight. But when she wrote them, she could count on an audience of women who were presented with similar dilemmas as her heroines and who identified with them in an immediate, personal way. For them, the art with which the subject was handled was secondary to the subject matter itself.

To get much out of her books today, you have to fall back to less immediate sources of interest, such as appreciating their historic interest or her accurate observation of human motive. Unless you can get a rise out of them on this level, there's not much else to keep you reading.

― Aimless, Tuesday, 7 October 2003 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

such is the plight of all "contemporary" fiction, no?

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 19:16 (twenty-one years ago)

True. But Jane Austen's subject matter stayed pretty up-to-date until the middle of the 20th century. In only the past couple of decades her 'natural' audience has been attrited down to almost nothing. Even the owning class has finally fallen away from the mating rites she describes.

― Aimless, Tuesday, 7 October 2003 19:37 (twenty-one years ago)

well, the mating rites of the renting class seem to be about the same as always: "Please go out with me? PLEASE???"

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 19:45 (twenty-one years ago)

ha ha ha PAGING TOM ROBBINS TO THREAD

SIMH.

― luna (luna.c), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I got about 1/3rd of the way into Jane Eyre one summer when i was a teenager, then got busy in other things. I remember then the next summer I had to start over - but still only got so far or something, and never finished. Or maybe I'm only thinking of one summer? I want to finish it but not wanting to re-read the part I already have has stopped me, even though it was like 7 years ago.

― Vic (Vic), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 20:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I find Jane Austen a compelling, sharp and funny writer. It is a drawback when what you are writing about is largely gone, but if a writer is strong enough their work survives.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 20:48 (twenty-one years ago)

This happens to me all the time. I even get to the penultimate chapter in a book and then get into another one, leaving a whole throng of unfinished reads.
Even books I really really like, like Lord of the Rings and Illuminatus!, I cannot say I have read because I gave up on them at the last post.

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 21:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I hate when I go back to a book and mistake it for a painting or a cd.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Even books I really really like, like Lord of the Rings and Illuminatus!, I cannot say I have read because I gave up on them at the last post.

Took me two months to actually read LOTR (bought it as a 3 books-in-1 edition). The trick is to read a chapter, put it down, do summat else, then read another. That simply isn't a series you can read, all at once.

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 21:30 (twenty-one years ago)

cf. Have you ever started reading a book halfway through?

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 22:28 (twenty-one years ago)

this happens to me every time i try to read a pynchon book. it even happened to me with crying of lot 49, and i've READ IT BEFORE!

my problem is that there's about 15 different books i want to read at any given time, and my attention span is extremely low, so unless i manage to read a book in one sitting it ends up taking quite a while to get around to finishing all of them.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 8 October 2003 01:05 (twenty-one years ago)

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Going back to a book after a long break and forgetting what the plot is - classic or dud?