Cast Aside

There was a time not so long ago when my motto was, “a book started is a book finished.”

Even though as an English teacher, I always tell my students, “if you start a book and don’t like it, don’t waste your time. Return the book to the library and try something new.”

This year, for the first time, I took my own advice. These are the five books that I started, but just couldn’t finish.

The Corrections by Jonathan Frazen

I think I started and tossed this book about five times at my last count. It just grates on me so badly I can’t get past the first few chapters.

The characters are completely unlikeable and too difficult for me to relate to (which is saying something because The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books and I am fairly certain Fitzgerald’s goal was to make the reader hate every character in that novel, yet I can read it over and over).

I spent the entire time reading completely disgusted by the language (vulgar for no reason other than vulgarity), the characters (disgusting and shallow), and the lack of a plot.

I think I kept trying because A) it was an Oprah book and I haven’t had such a bad reaction to one of her book club books before and B) other people seem to think Frazen is a genius.

I don’t see it. So it got tossed.

The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

This has been on my To Read list for about a hundred years or so. I was super excited to get it for my birthday and finally start it.

So you can imagine my disappointment when the plot seemed to go nowhere and the characters all seemed like shallow a-holes and I was reminded of another book set in NY about rich jackasses and wanna be rich jackasses that I cast aside (ahem, Frazen? Talkin’ bout you).

I told a fellow English teacher that I had to quit reading this one and she was dumbfounded. “I LOVED that book! I think you need to try again!” And then she admitted it had probably been 20 years since she read it.

I did not pick it back up.

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

This one I am going to catch some grief for…and I probably deserve it. I LOVE Faulkner. LOVE. The Sound and the Fury is on my list of best books EVER, so when I sat down to read this? I must not have been in the right frame of mind or something.

I mean, every person that I talk to loves this book and holds it among their top books. So what is wrong with me? This is the only book that I have quit that I think the problem lies with me and not the novel.

This may be the only book on this list that I have intentions of trying again. Because I KNOW I will like it. I just have to be in the mood for reading like someone with a Master’s in English.

A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

This book is small, but so full of hell.

Seriously though, this was actually assigned to me in a grad class and I thought pfft. easy. It’s small and the print is not that small. Piece of the old cake.

Wrong. Reading Joyce is like wading through mire and murk and run on sentences and forgetting what the subject is and oh my god are they still in Ireland or did they take a turn in the fourth level of HELL somewhere?

I did not finish this. And that means the likelihood of me ever even attempting Ulysses is somewhere between slim to not a chance in this lifetime.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

This is one where I fell victim to the old “this book is so amazing we can’t tell you what it is about…you just have to read it and have your mind blown” hype.

I bought it with intentions of reading it on the plane to and from San Diego this summer. It seemed to be the perfect length to read and finish in the 12ish hours round trip.

The first part was a huge struggle. The language was rough and the story seemed to pick up in the middle of something–but not in a good way–more in the way where you feel lost and confused and like you need to re-read everything you just read, but that would suck because it wasn’t that interesting in the first place.

I am told “it gets good in the middle”.

I can’t make it that far. I am to the part that is close to the middle. Where I sort of know what the “awful thing” is, but it hasn’t been totally described yet.

Not that anything except boring things are actually described. Even the promise of a wonderfully awful tragedy isn’t enough to keep me reading. That is sad.

So yeah. I quit.

I need your help, readers. Am I wrong here? Are these books awesome and I am just faulty? Or are these truly over-hyped and crap?

What books have you throw aside and said, “nope. can’t do it. NEXT!”??