Did any of you catch the recent article at The Atlantic online Finish That Book!? The article’s author, Juliet Lapidos, argues that we should finish reading every book we start. To that I say no way lady. I spent half my life believing I had to finish every book I began reading and don’t even want to try to calculate how many hours of unhappiness slogging through a book I was not enjoying has caused me. I can, however, tell you that it did not make me a better person in any way in spite of Lapidos’ belief that it does.
Lapidos thinks that too many people give up on books too soon. She has had personal experience in which she has kept reading a book she did not like only to find that by the end of it she liked it very much. I dunno, to me this sounds like the bookish equivalent of the Stockholm Syndrome. If you have spent a large chunk of time reading 700 pages of a book you did not like, of course by the time you are done with it you will be looking for a way to justify all that time and effort because you don’t want to admit that yeah, you should have given up on page 35 after all.
Lapidos gives a number of reasons why one should never give up on a book. They are:
- Pleasure. Because you never know when it might get good.
- Fortitude. Finishing a book you don’t like makes you stronger by building up your ability to “endure intellectual anguish.”
- Respect. The author worked really hard to write that book and it is only right to respect their efforts and see it through to the end no matter what.
The only time you should ever stop reading a book is if it is utter trash. But then you should avoid reading trash entirely anyway so really this is a non-issue. Right.
Lapidos takes a reading-as-broccoli approach. Books are not broccoli. Want to kill a love of reading in someone? Tell them to read a book because it is good for them.
I know a book might get good eventually. Or it might not. Sometimes I am not willing to find out. Sometimes there is just enough of something about a book that makes me willing to stick with it in spite of my misgivings. And sometimes I am glad I kept going and sometimes I am not.
I don’t think there is any merit to being able to endure intellectual anguish. What’s the point of making yourself miserable? Is there some special award that comes with cash and chocolate I don’t know about?
As for respect, sure writing a book is hard but that doesn’t mean a person deserves respect. An author needs to earn my respect, I don’t give it automatically just because they spent five lonely years writing a novel. That was their choice, though now and then I wonder if it perhaps may not have been a sign of insanity and a cry for help.
I know there are plenty of readers who slog their way to the end of a book because they feel guilty for giving up on it. I have felt that guilt too and can totally relate. But as I have gotten older and realized I have gained very little benefit from that guilt, I have managed to cut myself some slack and give up on books I am not enjoying. If Lapidos prefers to read until the bitter end that’s no skin off my teeth, she can do what she wants to with her books. She just shouldn’t be telling me what I should do with mine.
I do know a lot of people who refuse to give up on a book…ever. I understand that, I suppose, because when I was younger I was the same way. But as the years go by, I have come to realize there are more good books than good reading hours left in my lifetime. Now I fearlessly abandon a book when it gets to be too much of a chore to continue, be that on page 20 or on page 200. When enough is enough, I chuck ’em. So far this year (and don’t ask why I keep up with this), I have abandoned 15 books. In all of 2013, it was 17, and that has been the trend. A few more tossed books every year. And I feel good about it because tossing 15 allowed me to read 15 others that I did enjoy.
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Sam, I wonder if being more willing to abandon a book comes as we get older? It got easier when I began to realize I wasn’t going to live forever (though I still hope I will!). Plus, I enjoy reading both contemporary and classic novels and with recent books I can do all the research about it I want to, think it sounds like the perfect book, but quickly discover it is not. I think Lapidos is in the minority really because I have heard both critics and authors say we should be adventurous in our books choices and not feel a shred of guilt over abandoning one we aren’t enjoying.
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Some years ago, after reading an interesting interview of Richard Ford, I decided to try once again to read his first novel, The Sportswriter. It was going along just fine during the first 100 pages and I had made note of a goodly number of passages. But then it simply stopped, no doubt at the same place it stopped when I first put it down many years ago. It was going nowhere then and it wasn’t going anywhere now.
I had the same experience a few years ago when I began reading Ford’s novel, The Lay of the Land. It started off well and then seemed to me to simply come to a halt in mid-stream
What was I to do? I had read a third of both books. Couldn’t I tough it out for another 200 pages? I wasn’t sure I could.
Ford has recently published novel, Let Me Be Frank With You: A Frank Bascome Book. This is a book I am not going to buy. Two strikes is enough for me and I don’t want to feel guilty, not for setting the book aside, but for wasting my money once again.
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Richard, how interesting about Ford! I think you have given him plenty of chances and for whatever reason, the two of you just weren’t meant for each other. Sometimes we can give up after 100 pages because perhaps it was the right book but the wrong time and then try again later and a love it from start to finish. But other times despite our best efforts, it’s just not worth going on and there should be nothing wrong with that!
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There are books that I know immediately that I will not finish, and many that, in spite of a less than auspicious beginning, I’m glad I kept reading. Other books have a great beginning and then…turn into something that annoys me. I have no qualms about abandoning books..
It appears Lapidos is referring to classics, and I believe that many classics are worth the effort. Not all books are fast-paced or easy to understand, but are definitely worth the investment of time and effort. But neither are all books are well-written, nor do they all have subject matter worth spending time and effort on. I persevered through James’ The Ambassadors years ago, but I don’t feel a better person for doing so.
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Jenclair, I think you are right that Lapidos is referring to classics but I also get the feeling she is blanketing books in general since she doesn’t make an explicit classics reading statement. I’m all for continuing to read even if the going is tough like with James or any number of other authors (Joyce, Woolf, etc). A challenging text is a poor reason to abandon a book in my mind. But if the reading turns into an exercise in getting through it and the book and challenge cease to give pleasure, there is no point in going on whether it’s Dickens or Tolstoy or David Mitchell. Guilt free reading for everyone! 🙂
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“argues” is very kind.
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There’s a pretty good solution to the problem of whether it gets good–she can ask people who’ve read it. I do that all the time. Sometimes even people who liked the book will say it doesn’t change much, so I should give up if I’m not liking it. Or I read reviews, and if a bunch of people say it picks up at page whatever, and I haven’t gotten there, I may keep going.
Sometimes, too, finishing a book that isn’t clicking for me will turn me against that book altogether when the problem is really one of timing or mood. If I put a book away with the thought that I might try again someday, I could come back to it without that bad experience. I fear I ruined Brothers Karamazov for myself because I persevered with reading it when I was feeling distracted back in my finish everything days. Now I’m unlikely to go back to it, even though I think I could love it. I just dread facing the confusion again. Better to have quit at 50 pages and not built up any annoyance with it.
So really, it’s *good* for books if we quit what we aren’t enjoying!
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Teresa, asking other people about a book is always good but not always foolproof I find, still it helps! And yes, I totally agree, I’ve had the same experience of slogging through a book I didn’t like and then hating the book because of it when if I had just set it aside and tried again at another time I would have loved it. I had that experience with James Joyce and it took me 20 years to get over it and discover that I rather enjoyed his writing after all.
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I agree with everything Teresa says! Very often, I’ll stop reading a book because it’s not clicking with me right then. I’m so with her that it can be a real disservice to a book to force yourself through it. Sometimes it truly just isn’t the right time. What the reader brings to the book matters enormously, and if you’re not in the right mood or the right place to be open to a particular book, it’s better to put it aside and try it again another time.
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Jenny, I agree! It is often more respectful in my opinion to not finish a book than it is to keep slogging on. I think most of us are able to recognize right book wrong time situations. No reason to ruin a perfectly good book when trying again later will make all the difference!
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Interesting. I recently came across a similar argument as to Lapidos’ argument at a blog I follow http://www.andilit.com/2014/11/09/why-i-dont-abandon-books-the-sunday-salon/. I disagree with Andi there and agree with you here. Amen, amen, preach it, sister. 🙂
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Bryan, thanks for the link! I can understand the idea of getting something out of a book you don’t like as Andi remarks, but in my experience, I don’t get enough most of the time to make it worthwhile. Therefore, not finishing the book is better for both me and the book 🙂
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Well, Sam pretty much said it… but I’ll just add that my birthday present to myself a few years ago was that I don’t have to finish books I don’t like. This quickly morphed into the 50-page rule, and since then, I’ve enjoyed reading more — and finished more books — than ever before.
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everyday, a good birthday present! Yes, I have experienced that too. when you don;t force yourself to read books you aren’t enjoying you actually end up finishing more books because there is no foot dragging!
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I think most people would agree with you!
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booksandbuttons, thanks! Though there is nothing wrong at all with those who feel like they absolutely have to finish every book they start. To each her own, right?
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I agree with you 144% – but, my mother is still sitting on my shoulder.
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Bob, maybe you can find a way to suggest mom go sit somewhere else? 😉
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I used to finish every book I started because otherwise they lived in my brain and I kept rewriting the ending until I finished them. Having kids and shorter expanses of time for reading fixed that by letting me put down a book “just for a minute” and not pick it up again for…years, now, some of them.
I am still a believer in persevering to some extent, though. My favorite contemporary novelist, Nick Harkaway, writes the kind of books that need 75-100 pages before they really get going.
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Jeanne, heh, I know that moment of putting the book down just for a little break and having years pass! I don;t have a set page number at which I will give up on a book. Sometimes I have been certain at page 30 at others it took until 130 to decide. It’s case by case 🙂
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Mr. Elphinston talked of a new book that was much admired, and asked
Dr. Johnson if he had read it. JOHNSON. ‘I have looked into it.’ ‘What,
(said Elphinston,) have you not read it through?’ Johnson, offended at
being thus pressed, and so obliged to own his cursory mode of reading,
answered tartly, ‘No, Sir, do YOU read books THROUGH?’
Life of Johnson, somewhere in April 1773
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Tom, that is a most excellent quote!
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Are you kidding me? I mean…if I spent all my time completing all the bad books, I will never get around to the good ones!! As is we spend so much of our times in reading books which we hope will get better and it does not and now to expect us to read what we know is rubbish from the word go, is just to ridiculous!! Books are for pleasure, for intellectual enlightenment, they are not bitter medicines to forced down somebody’s throat..
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cirtnecce, oh yes, I know that desperate voice in the head that says, keep going, it has to get better! Exactly right, books are not bitter medicine. I have too many other more pleasurable things to do than suffer, even for a book.
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It’s refreshing to see someone own up to (or just own?) setting books aside. I’m definitely one of those readers who feels guilty for setting a book aside, but I will say there are some I’ve just stopped reading (and not just the “trash,” though I’ve definitely ditched some of those too). It is difficult, though, and not just because of the time already invested and the feeling that the book might improve; I’ve always felt like my tastes are really lowbrow for an English major–I regularly met people who at least claimed to love novels and writers I found really hard-going–so I’m always grappling with an inferiority complex when I put a really “literary” novel aside.
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Tamsin, when I was 20 I would never set a book aside and if I did, I would never admit it. After 30 it started getting easier and now there is no looking back. As an English major myself I am acquainted with that inferiority complex! But heck, if you aren’t in school anymore and not writing graded essays on what you read, shake off the English major guilt and read with wild and pleasant and guilt-free abandon 🙂
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Totally agree! There are too many good books to force yourself to read one. That said, I do like to get halfway through before I give up personally because I’ve read a few books that get much better.
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Terra, yes, once definitely has to give a book a chance. I don;t have a set number of pages or location like halfway, but there comes a point when you just know that it’s not going to work and it is time to stop.
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I went to see Nick Hornby speak earlier this week, and as usual he argued passionately and brilliant against the reading-as-broccoli approach. This is such a simple idea that it amazes me there’s still so much argument (though as Amateur Reader says; that’s putting it kindly) around it: not every book is for every reader; find the ones that are for you. Nick Hornby’s parting words were powerful: read what makes you feel alive.
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There is a part of me that wants to finish every book that I start but realise that sometimes it is best to admit defeat. I don’t do it easily but, yes, not every book is for every reader at every time. The hardest books to give up on are those that are seen as cultural broccoli but it can take a sort of humility perhaps to own up that the book might just be too much ( I remember you, Mr Gibbon). Readers should not be their own internal Hitlers always insisting: No Retreat!
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Ian, it’s not defeat! We can’t like every book we read and when we end up with one we are not enjoying it simply is not for us. Perhaps one day you and Gibbon will meet again and enjoy each other’s company very much.
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Ana, it is so cool you got to see Nick Hornby. He is one of my favorite writers about books. One of these days I will venture into his fiction. I wonder how we went from a culture that thought reading novels was bad for you to one in which they became like medicine? Now I think we are well into read what makes you happy but there are still hold outs like Lapidos.
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I have started abandoning more books recently after a quote from Carl Sagan made me realize that I have time to read about 2000 more books in my lifetime. So I had better choose wisely!
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biblioglobal, when you put a total number to how many books you can read like that it is so darn depressing! But then it also makes me want to be more selective about what I do read. And you are right, it sure makes it easier to not slog through books I am not enjoying!
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It is depressing! It might be something that it is better not to think about.
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I agree. Life is too short, and there are too many great books out there, to waste time reading something I am not enjoying. And honestly, when I read Juliet Lapidos’s snarky comments about Atonement, it just confirmed for me how silly her argument is. (I loved every moment of Atonement, but I wouldn’t demand other people read it and love it because I did.)
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mgibson2012, your comment about Atonement has me thinking that an approach to reading like Lapidos’ is more than just reading-as-broccoli, it also operates under the assumption that we should all like the same things, it leaves no room for disagreement. And every reader knows that there are lots of people out there who think your favorite books is terrible. How boring it would be if we all had the same favorite book!
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I used to slog through to the end of every book because I felt some odd duty toward it – not anymore. I don’t abandon them easily but if I can tell a book isn’t for me I will stop reading. I like what one of the above posters recommends as well – i think asking someone who has read the book is a great way to determine whether continuing to read is a great idea.
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everythinginbetween, asking about a book is good advice. I’ve done that before with a 900 page book I had such high hopes for. After 100 pages it was a horrible slog. I asked people who said they loved it and was told it picks up around page 300! I decided slogging through 200 more pages would only make me hate the book so much that by the time I got the page 300 there was nothing that would be able to save it. It’s a relief to not feel a sense of duty to finishing every book!
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Bet Lapidos is young. Trust me, when she gets to my age she might change her mind about fortitude. So much to endure…so little time! I’ll take the “pleasure” part of reading, thank you very much.
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Grad, I bet you are right about that! I thought the same thing.
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I actually agree with her, to an extent. That is, to the extent that I personally rarely abandon books, not that this translates in any way to telling other people what to do. Here’s why: not out of guilt, but because I’m reading my way through a series of “best of” lists and I don’t get to check a book off the list until I finish it. (Books not on the list? Fair game for setting aside if I haven’t invested too much time in the book. Contemporary fiction and nonfiction both get abandoned if I’m not into the writing or the story). There’s one exception: I checked off Midnight’s Children even though I didn’t finish and don’t expect to go back and do so. But for me, some of the pleasure of reading is completion (and list-checking-off), so I don’t tend to give up before they’re done. Repeat: finishing a book IS pleasure to me. But that’s me and I know it’s a bit weird (and connected to my intense love of checking things off lists), and I would never presume to tell someone they have to finish all the books they start, just as I would never presume to tell someone else what they “should” read to begin with!
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Sarah, very interesting about how you won’t abandon books from the best of lists but others you will with no hesitation. But as long as finishing the book is pleasant even if you did not enjoy the book itself, well, no one can really argue with that!
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I agree with you, totally. I used to feel obligated to finish every book, and forced myself through many miseries. Reading is better now that I have no issues abandoning a book that isn’t entertaining or educating me in some way. It has to be worth my while!
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Jeane, yes, exactly! It has to be worth the while in some way or other. Even books like Moby Dick or Anna Karenina aren’t going to be enjoyable for everyone and that’s ok!
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Those reasons Lapidos gives don’t hold water. The implication is like authors are on a higher plane and that we are the lowly subjects. Whatever they’ve written must be good… and it’s just you the reader who fails to grasp it. What about the author respecting the reader? Fortitude? Is that a joke? Consider a meal poorly made, or maybe the ingredients have gone bad, is there virtue in finishing everything on your plate if it’s simply not palatable or even inedible? Should one still eat it up and bear the consequences? Maybe it’s our mistake to even pick that book up in the first place. However, and it’s a big however, I do hope that we can finish The Guermantes Way. 🙂
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Arti, exactly! When I was 16 I thought writers were infinitely wise, they knew so much better than I did about everything but really they are just people with the same worries and problems as everyone else. I like your meal comparison! We will finish Guermantes Way I sure we will! It just might take longer than originally planned 🙂
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I’m afraid I’ve been distracted by so many other books that I’ve not been reading Proust. But will soon jump back on the bandwagon. 😉
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I am in the same boat as you on Proust! I haven’t even made it to page 100 yet because I seem to only manage a few pages at a time before I get pulled elsewhere.
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Pingback: About Endings – And Continuations | Still Unfinished
If she had any idea how many books I start but don’t finish she would probably shake her head in despair! 🙂 I do think there is sometimes merit in continuing on with a book you are not sure about, but then I also think that sometimes it is better for the book to just set it aside if there is no pleasure at all in reading it! I have persisted and been rewarded before, but sometimes keeping going is just painful! I think timing is also a part of the equation. Sometimes I have set a book aside, picked it up much later and the second time around it clicked and was a favorite book. Like Sam says–I have far too many books to try and read and not enough time in which to read them….why slog through something I know I don’t like!
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Danielle, heh, you might give her a panic attack and send her to the hospital 😉 I agree, timing sometimes makes all the difference. And why not set the book aside to avoid a bad experience now when you know that in a month or year a second try will likely produce a good experience.
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I’ve certainly read so-so books that turned out to have truly great endings. But even in those cases I cannot help but wonder why the author/editor team couldn’t do a better job of making the rest of the novel more compelling. There are too many books out there that will speak to us, entertain us, etc. to continue reading something you are not getting into because of some arbitrary idea that it is the right thing to do. It is not.
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Carl, I’ve read books like that too! I always end up wondering if the great ending was worth all the work it took to get there. Sometimes it is, other times, not so much. And then, yeah like you say, you have to ask, why the author/editor couldn’t do better at the rest of the novel.
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Whether it was worth it or not, for me, I guess partially depends on how I feel about it after some time has passed and whether or not it is something that keeps cropping up in my thoughts.
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Reblogged this on IReadThat and commented:
let it go…is what I say do not hold on in the hopes it will turn out good
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ireadthat, yeah, I have found hoping it will turn out good generally leaves me disappointed.
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Once you are finished with school all future reading is strictly based on the entertainment value of the book in hand. It is completely the author’s responsibility
to sufficiently motivate the reader to turn over to the next page.
I read 3/4 or more of Bleak House and put it down one day and never went back. I suddenly didn’t care how it turned out. (I think I was slightly disgruntled by the introduction of the 153rd new character.)
I read 3/4 of Remember of Things Past: well into book six “the sweet cheat gone”. I put it down, but intend to go back to it some day; and that was years ago.
I’ve ready Ulysses over the last 39 years at least a dozen – the most re-readable book.
And I tried twice last week to read the three tiny paragraphs (maybe 200 words) that
make-up the “prelude” to Middlemarch. But I could never even get to the third paragraph. Reading is just for fun.
Peace.
m.
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