books you've had to stop reading

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I'm loving IJ, chipping away at it in what seem like infinitesimal (no pun intended) chunks of a few pages at a time every few days. It's by no means a page-turner but I don't find it a huge effort to read, either. I don't think it's anything like as textually dense as it could be, put it that way, given the level of technical, psychological, political (etc....) detail DFW goes into. He's even got me to care about the tennis stuff.

I found it got pretty page-turny about half way through, when the plot actually got going...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I found it got pretty page-turny about half way through, when the plot actually got going...

Actually yeah, that's fair - I'm at about that point now. I'd class it along with Moby Dick as a 'believe the hype' book.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I really like DFWs criticism/journalism but not read any of his fiction yet. Got that short story collection of his ('brief interviews with hideous men's?), unread as yet.
 

droid

Well-known member
BTW, are we distinguishing 'had to stop reading' from 'basically couldn't be arsed with reading'?

Books you have a moral/physical/psychic objection to I assume.

I had to stop reading both Ligotti's 'Conspiracy...' and Reynolds 'Retromania' as they were both so depressing. Picked them both up again though, have read the former thrice now.

Reading Tim Cahill's book about John Wayne Gacy atm, which is brilliantly written and relentlessly disturbing - not in a gory way, but in how he takes interviews with Gacy and fashions them into a narrative, only occasionally allowing the pure horror to rise to the surface. Reminds me a bit of the final part of 2666 with its catalogue of corpses and dread implications. Tough going.
 

droid

Well-known member
Ulysses reputation has ruined it for readers I think. the idea that its some great work to be examined critically... let it wash over you, skip sentences, paragraphs, even chapters if you wish. Its supposed to be the opposite of a grindstone.
 

dert

Well-known member
"Stoner" by John Williams, most depressing thing i've read in a while. Droid if you like visceral reactions check it out.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Books you have a moral/physical/psychic objection to I assume.

I had to stop reading both Ligotti's 'Conspiracy...' and Reynolds 'Retromania' as they were both so depressing. Picked them both up again though, have read the former thrice now.

Ha, I read Conspiracy... while on holiday in Thailand last year. I don't know if I found it depressing as such, although it certainly didn't increase my desire to have children (something I'm extremely ambivalent about anyway).

Interesting (or maybe inevitable) someone should mention 2666 - I was thinking about that book just earlier today. I definitely struggled to get through 'The part about the crimes', I mean, there's only so many times you can read the phrase "vaginally and anally raped" before you find yourself saying "Fucking hell mate, we get the picture already"; but in retrospect it's actually crucial to the book as a whole. I think I mentioned here while I was reading it that although nothing in it happens that's explicitly supernatural, it's imbued with a seething cosmic dread that reminded me of nothing so much as Lovecraft.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I couldn't finish Graham Greene's 'The End of the Affair'. It was absolutely unbearable, and I'm generally a determined 'finisher'. I mean, I managed to get to the end of 'Eden, Eden, Eden' which is a hard as it gets. Something about 'Affair' just revolted me, however.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I think Heller is an interesting one. His first four novels are incredible and delightful to read until you get to about page 250 and you realise that there are 150 pages left to go and the joke has already been done to death (however well). I had to force myself through the last third of 'God Knows' even though I loved it. 'Good as Gold' probably has the best economy and variation.
 

droid

Well-known member
My issues with conspiracy and retromania weren't with the ideas alone, but with their effectiveness. I couldn't find any way out, any crack in the logic.

The Road is another one (though I ripped through it). An utterly convincing tale of somebody's future - a thought I couldnt get out of my head.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
The idea of it, which is why I said it was irrational. I have no justification for my instinct.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I did read the whole of 'On the Road', but regretted the time I spent on a mere period piece. Like I said, I'm a congenital 'finisher'. That's probably why I refuse to even start 'Infinite Jest'. Even the title pisses me off.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Yeah, Beckett's early novels are hard work. So dank, so depressing, too long for the effect they're striving for. The later, shorter novellas are better. As are the ultra-abstract and technical later plays.
 
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