the book you picked up most but still haven' t read or finished

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the first pages of dostojevsky's "the idiot" I know now almost from the top of the my head. the rest of it is still totally blank for me.

what's your "ulyssus" or GReat Unfinshed Novel?

― erik, Wednesday, 30 June 2004 14:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Moby Dick, In Search of Lost Time or whatever we're calling it now (Proust), most WS Burroughs, Big Sur (kerouac, finished H. Miller's)

― Huk-El (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 15:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Finnegans Wake. I've read the first page several times, I'll read the rest of it when I get the hang of it.

― Fred (Fred), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 15:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Middlemarch. It stares at me from my bookcase.
Moby-Dick really is worth the slog, eventually.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 15:37 (twenty-one years ago)

the first pages of dostojevsky's "the idiot" I know now almost from the top of the my head. the rest of it is still totally blank for me.

That's odd, I have the same problem with The Brothers Karamazov. I don't know why that is, I have read just about everything else by Dostoevsky.

― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 16:05 (twenty-one years ago)

ha, well the idiot is a short story compared to the bulk of karamazov, so I don't blame you.

I've put all those staring books away now and bannished them to the attic. prince mynski is there. amongst others.

― erik, Wednesday, 30 June 2004 16:08 (twenty-one years ago)

For me? Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle... and I don't know what the problem is. The story is fascinating, and in its odd way is more realistic than any other alternate-history-in-which-the-Axis-wins-WWII that I've come across. And I like Dick's short fiction, and Blade Runner is one of my favorite SF movies. Perhaps I'm nervous about how the story will end (and please, nobody tell me). *g*

― David Bannister (David Bannister), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 16:56 (twenty-one years ago)

i've had four or five tries with karamazov, that i can recall. the last time, i just skipped around at random. i've resigned myself to not entirely finishing, although i'll probably pick it up again. likewise the forsyte saga.

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 17:08 (twenty-one years ago)

The Alexandra Quartet, by Lawrence Durrell. I think the furthest I've got is about 20 pages in - and I always think to myself, what beautiful writing - and then I always put it down. Not sure why.

― Rachel Smithies, Thursday, 1 July 2004 09:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Voss. Patrick White.
Same as Rachel...I always think to myself what gorgeous writing, and then I have to put it down.
mmmm

― kath (kath), Thursday, 1 July 2004 11:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I always think to myself what gorgeous writing, and then I have to put it down.
I'm that way with A Hundred Years of Solitude.

― SJ Lefty, Thursday, 1 July 2004 11:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Mansfield Park. I've read all her others but just can't seem to begin this one. It's a mental block.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Thursday, 1 July 2004 12:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Gravity's Rainbow (I've never gotten past page 10), Moby Dick (right before he sets sail - or right before he's seeming about to set sail), Proust, Gaddis's JR, War and Peace, anything by Yasunari Kawabata

― David Elinsky (David Elinsky), Thursday, 1 July 2004 12:47 (twenty-one years ago)

The only place that Karamazov bogged down was in the famous Grand Inquisitor chapter. Get through that and you're home free. In War and Peace Pierre had that tedious flirtation with the Free Masons. Get through that and all is sweetness and light. Moby Dick stopped me at the sermon but I actually enjoyed the sermon when I listened to it on tape. My uncle claims Finnegans Wake is the funniest book ever but I never got past the second page. A Recherche Dans Les Temps Perdue, or whatever, was delightful for about 1200 pages but my life called me away. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was a joy for about 2000 pages but I lost interest after the Western Empire was crushed.

My greatest periods of reading happened when I was young and unemployed. Now, working alot, with kids, cable TV, video games, and adult onset ADD, I just don't eat up the books anymore.

― Robert Burns, Thursday, 1 July 2004 13:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Mansfield Park. I've read all her others but just can't seem to begin this one. It's a mental block.

If I were you, I really wouldn't bother.

― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Thursday, 1 July 2004 15:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Pride and prejudice. I don't think I'll ever even try reading any of her other books. I'm kinda prejudiced.

― Fred (Fred), Thursday, 1 July 2004 18:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was so cool when I was at University, so I dutifully tried to read it. No good. Tried several times since then - funny how it is often the book on people's bookshelves who have no interesting books at all - but just can't do it. Could it be that he is a pretentious idiot and that it's not my fault at all? Could college hipsters get it so wrong?

― Caroline (Caro), Friday, 2 July 2004 00:42 (twenty-one years ago)

two weeks pass...

lol Caroline, that´s just the book I first thought of to mention when I saw this thread. A former girlfriend gave it to me as a present for idontknowwhat and I never got through more than halfways, though I tried about 3 times.

Nowadays it´s the divine comedy, german translation, which keeps picking on my nerves :)

― Docolero (Docolero), Sunday, 18 July 2004 22:39 (twenty-one years ago)

ten months pass...

Books I didn't finish in the last few years and am racked with guilt about:

Tropic of Cancer
Catch-22
David Copperfield
The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The only place that Karamazov bogged down was in the famous Grand Inquisitor chapter

Reading this now--this chapter rules!! But will I make it to the end?

― Keith C (kcraw916), Friday, 27 May 2005 13:13 (twenty years ago)

Another vote for Moby Dick. I must have been reading it for 10 years, on and off. I haven't touched it for at least 18 months so maybe the time has come to start over again.

― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 27 May 2005 14:07 (twenty years ago)

Gravity's Rainbow (twice).

― Ray (Ray), Friday, 27 May 2005 14:23 (twenty years ago)

absalom, absalom! ... i lose interest right around where he says, "the long still hot weary dead September afternoon..." and if not there, on the next page, where it's all, "out of the biding and dreamy and victorious dust."
what does that even MEAN?

but i loved the sound & the fury.

― j c (j c), Friday, 27 May 2005 23:41 (twenty years ago)

what does that even MEAN?

Do we have to draw you a picture, or what?

This dust is biding and dreamy and victorious because... it's like this DUST, d'y'see and it's biding cuz it doesn't really go anywhere that you might notice, because IT'S ALWAYS HANGING AROUND, and it's also kinda dreamy, because like, in movies, you know, dreams are always all sorta hazy and dust is hazy, too, and you can't get RID of it and it kinda cakes up inside your nostrils, and if this was like a fight between you and the dust, it would WIN, which is victorious and like that.

D'y'see now?

― Aimless (Aimless), Saturday, 28 May 2005 01:50 (twenty years ago)

The Count of Mounty Cristo

― Crystal Shine, Saturday, 28 May 2005 15:25 (twenty years ago)

Aimless OTM. Dust also victorious because, well, we all gotta die in the end.

― Ken L (Ken L), Saturday, 28 May 2005 15:43 (twenty years ago)

D'Arconville's Cat. But it's not going anywhere and I'm going to live for 200 years, so I'll get to it.

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Saturday, 28 May 2005 15:47 (twenty years ago)

I had an amusing little book of big words you won't find in even the most comprehensive dictionaries. It gave example sentences, about half of which seemed to come from D'Arconville's Cat.

― Ken L (Ken L), Saturday, 28 May 2005 16:55 (twenty years ago)

by big I mean rare, archaic or unusual, as well as big.

― Ken L (Ken L), Saturday, 28 May 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

I second "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." That really is a crap book. And it came so highly recommended.

― Tweek, Sunday, 29 May 2005 08:53 (twenty years ago)

See this thread

― Ken L (Ken L), Sunday, 29 May 2005 10:00 (twenty years ago)

That didn't work. Try this thread

― Ken L (Ken L), Sunday, 29 May 2005 10:02 (twenty years ago)

Underworld; and
Infinite Jest

I've read the first four or so chapters about four times each and I just can't will myself to go any further.

― luna (luna.c), Sunday, 29 May 2005 16:07 (twenty years ago)

I've made it halfway through Dharma Bums and a quarter of the way through On The Road a couple of times before I just couldn't go on.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Sunday, 29 May 2005 23:47 (twenty years ago)

2nd-ed:

Gravity's Rainbow (6 times! Each further than the last, tho)
Infinite Jest (once. In 10th grade. Foolish.)
Hundred Year's of Solitude (x-post the beautiful writing and putting down)
Everything is Illuminated (chugging along just fine 'til "real life" concerns made me put it down. )

― giboyeux (skowly), Monday, 30 May 2005 16:11 (twenty years ago)

Gass' The Tunnel

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 30 May 2005 17:45 (twenty years ago)

I'm worst at this when it comes to history. I think I've probably been picking up and putting down Lords of the Horizon (Jason Goodwin's history of the Ottoman Empire) for a year and a half and I'm maybe five chapters in. And I do like it.

― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 30 May 2005 21:59 (twenty years ago)

A Hundred Years of Solitude, one more time. It was recommended as being the Ideal Book to suit my "tastes," and I think that confused me and plagued me every page of the way. I just...was not feeling it.

V, Pynchon. I needed to put a character map, or something, on my wall, and space is limited.

Coincidentally, I stole both of those from the library, so the guilt is multiplying exponentially.

Oh, and Zen and the blah blah. I passed it on, bewildered.

― Sierra, Tuesday, 31 May 2005 17:55 (twenty years ago)

When I worked at the library in college I would often open grab a volume of Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and read random passages, but I never pretended that I was going to sit down and read the whole thing.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 18:12 (twenty years ago)

I read the abridged version of that one in high school. There is a fun part near the end, I think, where there is a whirlwind tour of various lesser emperors, including Elegabalus.

Actually, my answer to the original question is, since the little apples of my eyes arrived ten months ago, practically every book.

― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 18:41 (twenty years ago)

Goodness, I feel that so many books have played this role for me. Perhaps Proust, but then I have not actually picked up Vol 3 (of 3) that many times, having managed the last two. And while Gravity's Rainbow was the book for a while, I did finish it with a heatwave reading marathon.

Maybe Of Grammatology. And I have still not made good on my 1994 resolution to read The Order of Things: so perhaps I never will.

― the bellefox, Thursday, 2 June 2005 13:55 (twenty years ago)

I'm ashamed to say Ulysses. I will finish it, though. One day.

― youn, Thursday, 2 June 2005 15:22 (twenty years ago)

The Name of The Rose
Anna Karenina I have read the first two chapters about 4 times now. I think I need to get the new translation with larger print.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Thursday, 2 June 2005 18:03 (twenty years ago)

haha i read like 500 pages of an older translation and for some unclear reason decided that i would like to read the pevear/volokhonsky translation and so bought it and started over. my progress since then has been less impressive.

yet i do not count it among the books of the type picked out by this thread. i have my own ways.

― Josh (Josh), Friday, 3 June 2005 06:26 (twenty years ago)

It took me years to finally finish The Name of The Rose. I must have tried a dozen times. I still can't get through On The Road, though.

― sparkle j (sparkle j), Saturday, 4 June 2005 01:07 (twenty years ago)

Michael Moorcock, Mother London. I've tried probably fifteen times over the past ten years. I finally decided I'm just not going to read it.

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 4 June 2005 02:45 (twenty years ago)

Les Miserables even though whenever I start it anew I feel so excited I think this will be the one time I finish it. but then it isn't.
and it's weird because I usually finish books if only out of the sense of guilt deriving from abandoning them...

― misshajim (strand), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:17 (twenty years ago)

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