[quote]quote:
Originally posted by Suite Madame Blue:
The Once and Future King by T. H. White (dry)

This is absolutely one of my favorite books! I thought it was just beautiful.

if i lose interest, i lose interest. a good storyteller should be able to keep the readers attention throughout, from start to finish. there are too many good writers out there to waste time on the lesser ones.

I either read a book all the way through, or give up after the first few pages. There are exceptions, some books can be rewarding even if they're hard going: Iain Sinclair is rambling, abstruse, and really hard to follow if you're not English, Pynchon, Gene Wolfe, a few others. In such cases I feel no qualms about reading through quickly just to get the gist and spot the high points.

It definitely depends on what kind of "bad" the book is. Sometimes, it's a point of honor to finish a bad book. When I read one of Jim Butcher's books, I thought "OMG, this is so shitty I have to finish it so I can tell everyone how bad it is." In that respect, I'm still looking forward to reading one of the "Left Behind" books.

Occasionally I get a book that's just not as mesmerizing as the author thinks it should be. This doesn't happen as often. I do remember trying to read a mystery by Tami Hoag and being utterly bored. I put it down 1/3 of the way in and never looked back.

So boring books -- give up. Sloppy but semi-interesting messes -- not so much.

I don't mind hard reads as long as they're good (like Gene Wolfe, as Zoneseek mentioned above, or M. John Harrison).

My standard rule of thumb is to give books at least 50 pages before I give up. Frequently I give up not because I think the writing is bad, but because I get into it and realize that it's just not what I'm in the mood for at that moment, and I misjudged the book. I also think that there are many great writers out there who I just can't click with, no matter how hard I try. William Faulkner, for example. I know he's considered a genius, but I just can't groove with this guy.

So put it down and wait awhile. I got Possession by A S Byatt and couldn't get into it at all. YEARS later, I picked it up again and couldn't put it down. Same with a couple of other books. But I would recommend keeping it unless it just offends you.

Well, I do leave a lot of books for another time. That, I have no problem with.

However, I'm very strapped for space, and so if I'm just frankly boared or don't care for the charactors, I get rid of it!

I'm not sure I agree with the posters on here who suggest that it is the author's "job" to entertain you. That might very well be true of the hacks that make up a large part of the English-speaking world's literary output - after all, publishing is as commoditised as any other large business - but surely genuine literary integrity comes from a writer having a vision that they fulfil to its conclusion. Whether that vision is "saleable" or not is a matter for the agent, editor and publisher.

I clench my teeth when I get this sense of people demanding to be entertained by writers, in the same way that I do when I hear similar remarks bleated about the theatre.

Rant over. Anyway, snowmaiden makes a wonderful point. You might just not be "ready for" or "in the mood for" some novels. Big weighty classics are a perfect case in point. Starting something like Moby Dick or Anna Karenin is a bit of a commitment. I lost count of the number of times I started the latter in my teens, because I studied literature and felt that I ought to read it. I never got past 200 or so pages.

I picked it up again in my mid-twenties and spent 4 or 5 days doing little else. Riveting, from start to finish.

Still haven't made it through Moby Dick, though. Yes, I could smell the salt air and feel the wind on my face. But could we please get to the sodding whale? Could we hell. For hundreds of pages.

Yeah, I'l take only just so much abuse before I tash a book - even if I paid for it.

Actually, I'm pretty nonlinear about how I read anyway. I consider any text hypertext. I will follow one thread (or a character) throgh a book and then start over on another thread. That's pretty much how I think - actually, it's pretty much how I live - so why shouldn't I read that way?

I'm dyslexic, so I scan books instead of actually reading. If I started at one end of a paragraph and read it word for word, by the time I got to the other end I wouldn't have the slightest idea what I had read.

I used to buy old (antique) tomes and drive my parents crazy by making notes in the margins.

So, no, I guess there's nothing I hold sacred in books - except maybe the information, if it's worth it.

Guernica, I never enjoyed Norton's Anthologies until I started reading them after I had graduated and settled into a career.

And I agree, A writer's job isn't to entertain but to communicate. The same for any producer of media.

Well, the writer has a duty to express himself clearly. So maybe it's fair to say that it takes two to tango. What puzzles me is when people want "light reading." Huh? I want engaging, challenging reading.

I want light reading sometimes, the same way I want a light lunch.

Light reading is good.

Absolutely, Barb. (Wo)man cannot live on weighty tomes alone. For every Dickens you notch up, you need a bit of fluff. I tend to read a couple or three books simultaneously... one's maybe better for reading before I fall asleep, or on the Tube on my way to/from work. Another might be when I've got a few hours on a Sunday and can really sink into something.

Okay, so the effort expended should be proportionate to the rewards: enlightenment, information, amusement. It depends on what you're looking for. Usually is.

People give up on dense or obscure books because they're not fun or illuminating. Or people can keep going on a light book because the payoff makes the minimal effort worthwhile. Contrariwise, one might give up on a book even if it's made up of simple sentences and short words because it's trite, predictable, barren, boring.

I guess it depends on the book.

There are some books I found dreadful, but friends were reading them at the same time and we spent lunch breaks laughing about how dreadful the books were.

There are some books that have some historical significance or are widely regarded that I have also forced myself through, but not always. I gave up on Ayn Rand.

I found a great bit on William Gibson's blog. It starts with a quote from another writer, Zadie Smith:

quote:

But the problem with readers, the idea we’re given of reading is that the model of a reader is the person watching a film, or watching television. So the greatest principle is, 'I should sit here and I should be entertained.' And the more classical model, which has been completely taken away, is the idea of a reader as an amateur musician. An amateur musician who sits at the piano, has a piece of music, which is the work, made by somebody they don’t know, who they probably couldn’t comprehend entirely, and they have to use their skills to play this piece of music. The greater the skill, the greater the gift that you give the artist and that the artist gives you. That’s the incredibly unfashionable idea of reading. And yet when you practice reading, and you work at a text, it can only give you what you put into it. It’s an old moral, but it’s completely true.

Gibson:

quote:

I would add that talented writers begin as talent readers, though I've scarcely heard it remarked upon.

The two activities are not only fundamentally similar, they're the necessary halves of a single human activity.

The reader completes the arc.

If there is no reader, there is no text.

I give up on books all the time. Sometimes just because I have been busy and have not read any of it for a few days.

Of course, a cynic might suggest that the delectable Ms Smith's comment falls rather neatly into the category of "my books aren't bad, you're just not particularly intelligent or sophisticated".

But I'm not that cynical, and she is a fine writer, so I'll pass on. I actually rather like how it seems to compliment the Barthes-ian idea of the author being an irrelevancy, and that the book's life revolves around the reader. It doesn't matter what the author thought when he or she wrote it, but only what you get when you leaf through it.

Seamus Heaney's been preaching that one for years. He has an endearing habit of smacking down questions about influences and theories with 'It doesn't matter what I thought, its what it makes you think.' Can't stand his poetry, but I have so much love for his attitude.

I've given up on a Gene Wolfe, in sheer confusion. And on several Ian McDonald books, because even though he's an amazing story-teller in person, he derails off into techno-detail too much for me to actually read. This is problem with me more than with him, in all fairness. But I'm slowly digging through the classics which defeated me as a teenager. Reading David Copperfield at 13 was a terrible idea, even if I was incredibly starved for something to read.

Yes, I do give up on books. Sometimes it is because I am just not in the mood for a certain book. Like I just finished a crime novel and start on another crime novel.Then I might find out that I want to read something else for a change. But I will return to the book I`ve given up on. When I am in the mood again.
And then there are books I more or less throw through the room and never pick up again...
Oh, and a merry christmas to all of you!