Comments on: Virtuous reading

By: Hang in There? | Word (en)Count(ers)

Hang in There? | Word (en)Count(ers) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 18:07:31 +0000

[…] was a good blog post over on Dystel Goderich about Virtuous Reading that connected with me on this subject. Except, I’m not reading Cuckoo’s Nest because […]

By: Teri Carter

Teri Carter — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 14:34:06 +0000

It’s taken me 40 years to decide I don’t have to slog through a book. I still feel guilty, of course! But I just can’t do it. No matter how many “experts” and friends go on and on and on about a novel’s greatness.

THE TIGER’S WIFE is one. I came home from AWP last year (where I’d seen Ms. Obrecht) and bought a copy. All I can say is you, Miriam, made it twice as far as I did. I also hated Franzen’s FREEDOM, and Orringer’s THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE, and Moore’s A GATE AT THE STAIRS. That last one hurt me — I worship at the writing altar of Lorrie Moore. But I kept reading and waiting for my Lorrie Moore to show up. After 150 pages I was sure she didn’t even write the book, that’s how foreign it seemed.

On a recent vacation, I was slogging through Mantel’s WOLF HALL and my husband put an old 130-pager in my hands: John D. MacDonald’s first Travis McGee book. I read it in one day. And loved every minute.

Life’s too short for the slog.

By: Yat-Yee Chong

Yat-Yee Chong — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 21:18:12 +0000

Thanks, Rowenna! Ought to have loved: and yet didn’t. I’m glad someone else had the same reaction. Happy reading!

By: Candace Austin

Candace Austin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:44:13 +0000

You’re having a mid-book crisis. It happens. You’re bored, longing for more. So go out there and spend ridiculous amounts of money on titillating books that make you feel inspired, happy, full of life. Sure, the book clubs will whisper. The scandal! Let them. As Sheryl Crow said, “If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad.” But don’t lose hold of the virtuous book, the classic. One day, you may find yourself intrigued by the promise it held, and discover that the last half of the story delivers the happiness you were searching for. Then again, you may never look back!

By: Rowenna

Rowenna — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:56:46 +0000

Yat-Yee–I virtuously read The Piano Teacher, too! It was a book I so “ought” to have loved…and I finished because I thought there must be something more that I was missing until the end. It’s that reader’s optimism you mention–this must have something hiding, a lovely gem that I just haven’t uncovered yet.

By: Stephanie P.

Stephanie P. — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:20:28 +0000

I push through a novel whose story isn’t grabbing me or lacks emotional voice if the writing is beautiful. It is the beauty of the writing that motivates me to read. I devoured The Tiger’s Wife for that reason. If the reviews were excellent, I certainly push myself more. BUT… when I don’t like it, I don’t waste my time in reading further (The Help, Super Sad True Love Story, etc).

By: Heather Hawke

Heather Hawke — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:17:18 +0000

I’m trying to get better about dropping a series if it devolves into a sequence of vignettes. That’s always so sad when I loved the initial books. However, I do think there’s value in plowing through stories that maybe aren’t page turners, but resonate years later. Trouble is, hard to know which those are going to be.

By: Hillsy

Hillsy — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:26:31 +0000

HA! Be lucky you have a choice, or at least an unhampered one.

Due to some wierd synaptic misfiring, I can’t NOT finish ANY book. Dunno if it’s guilt, or OCD, or what…but I’ll read to the end, no matter the cost.

I finished the “left hand of god” yesterday, and after the first 100 pages (which were pretty OK) it nosedived spectacularly – and not just boring, I mean offensively bad. So bad it was making me angry. But I *had* to finish it (and not because it was gripping in anyway despite the appalling writing) which took me about a week.

So consider yourself fortunate…hehe

As for the virtuous part, well I think they do a bit on the podcast “writing excuses” where they talk about The Da Vinci code and why every aspiring author should read it. If you’re not enjoying it, that’s fine, just shift focus and study it instead to find out what Dan Brown did right.

In your case, if your struggling, change your reasons for why your reading it (and, yes, I guess just saying ‘you have’ is a viable reason)

By: DBurks

DBurks — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 02:25:12 +0000

Dump it. I try to read most of the award winners to see what the ‘real professionals’ value, but I am consistently disappointed. I finally decided that reviewers are not really virtuous enough to actually read the books they rate. I have too many good things to do to waste my time reading compulsively simply because of commercial hype or critical nonsense.
I am also convinced that the reader’s station in life and state of mind are critical to their ability to grasp a story. The same Cooper tales you found dense and dead I found exciting enough to read all of them as a fifteen year old boy in Arkansas who could instantly recognize the characters and their motivations. Even the antique language was part of the charm. Still, I was the only one. I also was thrilled with Walter Scott.
The one current writer who sells millions that I simply can not understand is Jeffrey Archer. I find his stories adequate and not a complete waste of time, but they seem so ordinary. What’s the attraction?
The Robert Jordan ‘Wheel of Time’ books that my grandson and his college friends find so captivating make no sense at all to me. I want a book that gets to the real story in less than five hundred pages of stage setting and preparation.
Now that the word is out that you will slog through 100 pages of a boring book you are about to receive about ten thousand submissions a day. Good luck.

By: Catherine Whitney

Catherine Whitney — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 23:57:03 +0000

I discussed this blog with my mother, whose ambitious book club reads a book a month. I asked her what happened when people didn’t like a book. She said, “Well, if the ladies don’t like it, they refuse to read it.” She added, “I HAVE to read every book because I write the reviews for the [assisted living center] newsletter.” However, she did point out that when she read books she might not have otherwise chosen, she always learned something new. “How else would I know the story of General Custer?” she asked. Go Mom! (She’s 86.)