Books You Never Quite Read

[Ken B]

Inspired by a comment from Florestan on the Reading thread ...

Are there books you have almost but never quite read, over a long time? Recently I read a couple books that had been on my shelf for over 15 years, and one that had been on my to-read list for over 30.

Here are a few that I have almost read many times over many years

Boswell, Life of Johnson
Lewis, Elmer Gantry
Laclos, Dangerous Liaisons

[Karl Henning]

Honestly, I'll have to say The Pickwick Papers, in that there were (let's say, ten) passages which after trying a paragraph or two, I felt myself incapable of reading every word, and I speed-read/skimmed until I reached a passage which struck me as repaying interest.

[Jo498]

Some that I did not finish for some reason, usually after reading more than 50%

Tolstoy: Anna Karenina
von Doderer: Die Strudlhofstiege
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strudlhofstiege
Faulkner: The Sound and the fury [seemed like a tale told by an idiot I could not figure out, even in translation]
Joyce: Portrait of the Artist as a young man [I did not get far here, I lost it on a trip in a train or coach]

Sitting on my shelves for years but I haven't even started are two volumes with shorter/lesser works by Dostoevsky, such as "White Nights", "Poor folk" etc.

[Karl Henning]

Something like 35 years ago I was reading Moby Dick and got bogged down in the chapter on the try-works.  Then I had to move, and the book never turned up among my boxes.   I've never gone back and tried again.

One of my favorites.

That said, my buddy Paul has no patience for it.  Use your own judgement 

[Todd]

Rushdie's Midnight's Children.  I tried - how I tried - to read the whole thing, but my eyelids became too heavy.

[Ken B]

Something like 35 years ago I was reading Moby Dick and got bogged down in the chapter on the try-works.  Then I had to move, and the book never turned up among my boxes.   I've never gone back and tried again.

Skip that chapter. I tried, got bogged down, and abandoned it. Years later I picked it up again, skipped the whaling history, and really liked it.

[Turner]

Ulysses, like a lot of people, only excerpts.

No longer studying, I´m much more of a browsing type, favourites being travel guides and to some extent art and music books, in the main. I´ve collected a quite large library though, and I plan to take up a lot of reading from now on; my last classical CD buying was in late January, and the idea is to enjoy the already collected material, and shift the focus a bit to literature & other interests.

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

Two that quickly come to mind.

The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevsky

Christianity, the First 3000 Years - Diarmaid McCulloch. I got about 500 pages into it and then became bogged down. Other books beckoned.

[Ken B]

Rushdie's Midnight's Children.  I tried - how I tried - to read the whole thing, but my eyelids became too heavy.

I have often felt Rushdie could be useful in treating depression.
"It's not as hopeless as you feel."
"It can't get any worse!"
"Yes it can. It can."
"No, it can't."
"Here, read this."

[Karl Henning]

The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevsky

Again, not in any spirit of denying your own experience    I found this highly engaging.

Ulysses, like a lot of people, only excerpts.

I cannot really bring myself even to start it.  I appreciate The Firesign Theatre's use of it at the end of How Can You Be in Two Places At Once If You're Not Anywhere at All

[Florestan]

Something like 35 years ago I was reading Moby Dick and got bogged down in the chapter on the try-works.  Then I had to move, and the book never turned up among my boxes.   I've never gone back and tried again.

I am reading it these days, I am probably a third through. I find it highly engaging, fascinating actually. 

A book that I started and abandoned twice is Stendhal's Red and Black. The third time I read it in less than a week and absolutely loved it, wondering how the hell could I have been so blind the other times. 

[Florestan]

Good luck with Chapter 96.

Not there yet but I'll keep your warning in mind. I'll skip it rather than let it spoil my enjoyment. 

[Spineur]

Rushdie's Midnight's Children.  I tried - how I tried - to read the whole thing, but my eyelids became too heavy.

Read all the books mentioned so far, except this one.  Beautiful writing, but no rythm at all.  After half the book, I skipped a lot.

Antonio Lobo Antunes: Portugal splendor.  A very hard and not rewarding read 

[Mister Sharpe]

...A book that I started and abandoned twice is Stendhal's Red and Black. The third time I read it in less than a week and absolutely loved it, wondering how the hell could I have been so blind the other times. 

+1.  Andrei, don't stop now.  Next stations will be:  La Chartreuse de Parme and an unfinished work esp. popular with French Depts. today for its many intellectual challenges :  Lucien Leuwen.  I also really enjoyed Armance, an early novel.  For its social and psychological insights and sheer je m'en foutisme:  De l'amour is something of a surprise (made into a film in the 60s but never have seen it).

[Jo498]

I read Ulysses in German translation many years ago; I had some kind of companion volume with commentary and got through considerably well.
Moby Dick I read as a teenager, also in translation and it might also have been abridged although I am pretty sure it was not one of those versions "for the youth" cut to a fragment. Later, in my late 20s or so, I tried it in English and got about one third in or so before others things became more important.

A book I tried twice (first time probably as a teenager) and got stuck both times but finished many years later on a third attempt (this was about two years ago) is Dante's Divine Comedy (in translation). I hope some day I'll be able to read Italian well enough to use a bilingual edition and read it again, probably also with a better commentary/footnotes (although I had some, it is hopeless without).

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

There are a number of large novels that I've read in chunks spread over a period of years: War and Peace and Ulysses are among them. In the former case, it sort of makes sense because the action covers a long time span. In the latter it doesn't, because the action takes place on one day.

I've read the first volume of Tristram Shandy but not the following ones, as well as Part I of Faust but not Part II, and Dante's Inferno but not the 2 follow-ups.

I also got quite far into Musil's Man without Qualities but didn't reach the end. I figure that's OK, because he didn't finish writing it anyway.

Books I will probably never read, due to considerations of space, time, or some other factor, include that multi-volume Proust thing (whatever it's called now in English translation) and Finnegans Wake. In the case of the latter, I am skeptical that anyone has actually read the whole thing.

[Karl Henning]

[...] and Finnegans Wake. In the case of the latter, I am skeptical that anyone has actually read the whole thing.

. . . if only I could stay a-wake . . . .

[Parsifal]

Rushdie's Midnight's Children.  I tried - how I tried - to read the whole thing, but my eyelids became too heavy.

Also found it dreadful, can't remember if I finished it. I did enjoy several other books, The Moor's last Sigh and Shalimar the Clown.

[Florestan]

+1.  Andrei, don't stop now.  Next stations will be:  La Chartreuse de Parme

That one I've read in one single shot and I was enthralled from beginning to end.

I also really enjoyed Armance, an early novel. 

Ditto.

and an unfinished work esp. popular with French Depts. today for its many intellectual challenges :  Lucien Leuwen.

It's on my (quite long) reading wishlist.

For all their innacuracies, his Vies de Haydn, Mozart et Metastase make for an enjoyable reading. 

TD: I found most Orhan Pamuk's novels boring as hell, save Snow which is a page-turner. My Name Is Red and The Black Book are twice as long as they should've been; the former has endless and useless diggressions, while the best parts of the latter are the diggressions. Never finished The White Fortress although it's much shorter. He is vastly overrated imho.

[vandermolen]

Some that I did not finish for some reason, usually after reading more than 50%

Tolstoy: Anna Karenina
von Doderer: Die Strudlhofstiege
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strudlhofstiege
Faulkner: The Sound and the fury [seemed like a tale told by an idiot I could not figure out, even in translation]
Joyce: Portrait of the Artist as a young man [I did not get far here, I lost it on a trip in a train or coach]

Sitting on my shelves for years but I haven't even started are two volumes with shorter/lesser works by Dostoevsky, such as "White Nights", "Poor folk" etc.

I never finished 'Anna Karenina' twice, although I loved 'War and Peace'.