Dull books - Stop or Carry on?

[Davey S2]

There are a few references in the 'what are you reading thread' from people saying they are 'wading through' such and such a book but finding them really heavy going.

If you start a book do you feel compelled to finish it? if not, at what point do you decide to call it a day?

There have been a few that I have stopped reading (Wolf Hall being the last). Reading is supposed to be enjoyable and if I'm not enjoying it I'd rather move on to something else. I appreciate that some are slow burners and take time to get going but you can usually tell within a few chapters wheher its going to hold your interest.

[rumple]

I give them a good go, sometimes its rewarding,e.g The dark towers series, sometimes I give up, usually that will be a 200 page paperback that's just poor, I feel a failure for doing it and prefer to wade through, the book then seems like a Millstone around my neck.

[Malx]

If I'm enjoying a book I love finding a bit of free time to read and I do this everyday. If I don't get on with a book and I find that i'm skipping a few days without reading I move onto the next. I don't like doing it though but I kid myself that i'll return to it at somepoint. Sometimes I do return to a book and on teh second attempt I find I actually enjoy it. Bernard Cornwell's the Last Kingdom being one that.

One of he first books I gave up on was the Dark Tower series, it just wasn't holding my attention.

[tertius]

I used to slog through them and it was a matter of pride that I should never give up, but after trying to read Persuasion years ago I decided it isn't worth it, there are too many great books out there to waste time on stuff I'm not enjoying.

[g3org3y]

I slogged through Proust on principle on the hope it'd get better.

It did a little.

[BenM77]

A bad film can rob a couple of hours of your life, a bad book can be even worse !

You should know by 10-20 pages IMO.

[BigBen]

I remain committed to a book after I have started it. It is for this reason I have read 'catcher in the rye'

[davepoth]

Difficult books, I stick with. I've been reading one for ten months. It's so obtuse I have to read it ten pages at a time unless I have literally nothing else to do (I have dusted ahead of reading). Dull books, I give up reasonably quickly but I try and pick good ones.

[coppice]

Define 'dull' ; I wouldn't persevere with a badly written book but the fact that the plot doesn't race along is neither here nor there for me. It is all about the writing. Richard Ford's Canada is a case in point- in 400 odd pages there are two events of significance . But the book is utterly sublime- RF rightly regarded as a premier league US writer. Bang crash wallop thrillers leave me cold- but as not as cold as their film equivalents.

[toast boy]

davepoth said:

Difficult books, I stick with. I've been reading one for ten months. It's so obtuse I have to read it ten pages at a time unless I have literally nothing else to do (I have dusted ahead of reading). Dull books, I give up reasonably quickly but I try and pick good ones.

This is more or less what I think. I've fought my way through a few books that were either slow burners or hard to read but felt rewarded at the end. American Psycho springs to mind - for me it was tough going, vast amounts of the book are about development of the character which are written to be deliberately dull and overly detailed. However, by the time you get to the end of the book, you really do get into the mind of the guy. On the whole it was a book that was worthwhile and good in retrospect, but not particularly enjoyable to read.

In contrast, as has been said, Catcher in the Rye... tried a number of times and still not been able to get into it. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm not going to read it, I've got a pile of books I need to read and I'm not going to waste my time!

[Huff]

Yes, it does rather depend on whether I think the effort is going to be worthwhile.

War and Peace, Brothers Karamazov, long and dense technical texts etc - go for it.
Conversely I've had four goes at 'Catch 22' over the years and each time dropped it in annoyance. It is just banal. Not going to bother trying again.

[zb]

Normally if a book isn't grabbing me I just chuck it, both literally and figuratively speaking.

Only on one occasion have I persisted: I slogged through the works of Chekhov, purely to see if he got any better and in case I was missing completely why he's so highly rated. He didn't and I wasn't, the only redeeming thing I can say about Chekhov is that he appears to have been quite an influence on Hemingway.

[g3org3y]

Huff said:

Conversely I've had four goes at 'Catch 22' over the years and each time dropped it in annoyance. It is just banal. Not going to bother trying again.

Catch 22 is brilliant! Much more fun than Proust!

[AnimalMkIV]

If it hasn't gripped me in the first couple of chapters, then I'm more likely to give it up. The only one I have slogged through was (possibly) book 4 of the Chronicles Thomas Covenant - far too many pages of them stuck on a boat, whining. It does get better, but god does that section drag on.

[scdan4]

Catch 22 is superb, but it made more sense for me past the middle. The second half pulled together a lot of threads from the first half.

I tend to keep going, but Don Quioxte keeps defeating me. Just can't finish the bugger.