I'm re-re-re-re-re-re-starting "Infinite Jest"

[Recursion]

Literally. I've started reading this thing 5 times before, and never made it past 150 pages or so.

But I feel like it's a book I "should" have read, so I want to actually read it.

Anybody else have a book they feel like they "should" finish but just can't?

[sharp_stick]

1. It took me something like five years

to read War and Peace. I'd pick it up and get through 150 pages or so before I got bored and put the book down. Several months later I'd pick it up again and carry on.

I'm glad I finished it but probably would never read it again.

I still have not finished Moby Dick. I've tried several times but damn that is one boring book IMO.

[malthaussen]

2. Living up to your name, are you?

I rarely come across a book I dislike so much I can't even finish it, but when I do, I have no qualms about putting it aside. I figure in what's left of my life, I won't even have time to read (and re-read) all the books I actually enjoy, so why waste time in pennance?

-- Mal

[Hiraeth]

3. DFW is over rated, too wordy and, was in dire need of a good editor. There. I said it.

I have always thought it and now, I have said it out loud.
Let the flame war begin.

[Recursion]

4. Hey I totally agree

Nothing against him, just that Infinite Jest is probably not the Great American novel.

[Hiraeth]

5. Exactly. Good luck with your endeavor. I wish he had not committed suicide. I think his best work

was yet to come.

[panader0]

7. DFW just posted today on DU!

Of course I mean our own DFW and not the Infinite Jest author....

[Hiraeth]

8. ha! I venture to say that our own DFW writes every bit as well as the IJ-DFW !!

[deutsey]

11. I agree

I haven't read any of his books mainly because his essays kind of discouraged me from doing so. He was a talented writer, in my opinion, but in his case the words really did seem to get in the way of it.

[Xyzse]

6. Feel the same way.

Couldn't stand the characters though, and I can't relate, so I keep chucking it off to the side.

I have not finished Ulysses... I probably should try again one day.

I have not finished the Kalevala... that, is a drudge to read.
Think of it this way, many of the characters have 5+ syllable names, that to me, sounds alike. It is also written in lyrical form, and I just gave up.

[skypilot]

9. "Paradise" by Toni Morrison

It was the first thing she published after winning the Nobel Prize in 1993. I tried very hard to read it. I was always reluctant to put it down, not because it was that engaging but because I was afraid I'd never pick it up again. Which is exactly what happened after I put it done the third time.

[cemaphonic]

10. If you didn't like the first 150 pages, you probably won't like the rest

It's not really driven by plot, so life at the rehab center and tennis school is most of the book.

That being said, there are some wonderful sections that stand out, and don't depend (much) on the rest of the book for context, especially if you've read it enough to have a sense of most of the characters.

1) The history of video telephony. Early enough that you might have run into it already. Funny, and prescient of where we are now with how a lot of people deal with video phones.

2) The complete film works of Hal's father. It's in the footnotes, and easy to spot. Some really interesting and amusing experimental film concepts.

3) "Eschaton" The best set piece in the entire book. Starts on page 321. If nothing else, read this section before calling it quits.

For me, the book that I felt I "should" read, but could never get past the first 100 pages was Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!" Then something clicked on about the 5th reread, and I discovered that while it is a really difficult book to read (flexible timeline, multiple narrative frames, etc), the story was chock full of all sorts of lurid Southern Gothicness.