ARTICLE - The Books I Never Finished Reading

I recently gave up on reading Piranesi, the prize winning novel by Susanne Clarke. I got halfway through it, and still felt in a darkened state of imaginative disengagement, waiting for something to turn the light on for me. Warning signs were emerging. A determined attitude was setting in - lets put our shoulder to the wheel and get ourselves to the end. Only then could I be free to read something more enjoyable. My husband reminded me that there was another, less self punishing, option. To stop reading it altogether and move on.

Its a rare thing that I would do this. I am into completion by temperament, or should that be habit? Not finishing anything just feels lazy, fundamentally wrong. An act of failure, either on the part of my limited imaginative faculty or that of the author's. Some one has to be found to blame for this state of affairs, this failure to connect, it's either your fault or theirs. That it might simply be just not my sort of book, is like reminding the person with chronic IBS that maybe they shouldn't eat spicey foods. Its not helpful, of course we know. But we cannot resist the desire to consume whatever we want with the risk of the sudden onset of chronic diarrhoea, only one of the possible outcomes.

One can forget that reading is a voluntary act of free will, no one is making you do this. You bought or borrowed the book in the first place. You chose to read it, but tend to forget you're also equally at liberty not to do so. In theory, I think of myself as an averagely intelligent chap operating on the premise that I am able to obtain a rough and ready grasp of things. But, in reality I don't always.  Like everyone, I have my limits, even if I'm not ready and willing to openly admit it. For the male of the species this can all be a bit loaded. It would be like confirming in public you are thick or stupid. To risk ribaldry and ridicule. Something you'd just never do, however true it was, or how common place a male experience it may or may not be. Its just better to draw a very opaque veil over the whole subject.

I have given up on non fiction books when I've discovered too late they were far too theoretical or technical for me.  Recently I bought a short compilation of writings by Gaston Bachlard, because quite a few years ago I read and gained a lot from his book The Poetics of Space. However, this one, On Poetic Imagination & Reverie completely defeated me. Early warnings were the Prologue and Introduction by academic commentators, that took up half of what was a very slim volume of just over a hundred pages. The experience of reading these was reminiscent of being locked in a room where no sound could either enter or leave. They use specialist and, for me at least, impenetrable forms of expression. Despite my noncomprehension, I was not entirely convinced that they had anything of real interest to say underneath all that fawning verbiage. I found myself reading and re-reading sentences hoping to gleen a morsel of meaning from it to feed either my intellect or imagination. But they floated through my consciousness without creating the slightest ripple of understanding. This was humbling for sure. If I were then to descend into the mode of the savage critic, or worse still to character assassinate someone I've never met. Then both the author and I would be truly lost. The vindictive slap across the face of righteous impulses, should never be thoughtlessly indulged. So you didn't get it, get over it!

I don't imagine anyone wants to feel beaten by a mere book. So much so I have been known to keep trying again and again, but hitting the same wall, with an increasing degree of masochism. The best example of this tendency, was reading Thomas Pynchon's - Gravity's Rainbow. Its a very weighty book in both size, scope and complexity. I started off quite enjoying the rich quality of his writing style, this was going to be good. However, it shifts constantly about in time, period and place with little indication when you have changed location. You just have to intuit when this is happening. It has a vast range of eccentric characters, with new ones being introduced all the time. There came a point, about 150 pages in, when I found myself lost. I no longer knew who anyone was or what was happening, I became utterly exasperated. I no longer cared to live there with my imagination anymore. This happened each of the three times I attempted to read it. I have never returned to Pynchon since, its too painful an experience to risk reliving it yet again.

When it comes to my taste in music, I seem quite happy to try out anything. But equally happy to not make too big a deal of it, if it doesn't excite my interest or enthusiasm. My view towards books is apparently substantially different. Still open to trying something out. But the experience of not liking or getting on with a book, has a much more pronounced impact upon my self esteem and views of my intellectual ability. Which is interesting to note, I suppose, with regard to the fixed murky shadows of ones self view. Particularly for the practice of holding ones likes and dislikes more lightly or provisionally. Over identifying is all.