Need advice, Cant Read Fiction/Literature

[ehitskit00]

hello. I luckily came across this forum after doign a search for literature forums to weigh in their advice or opinions on my experiences with fiction and literature. I read non-fiction quite a bit, philosophical texts, historical, mathematical, scientific,etc. However when I attempt to read fiction, and I discriminate between texts of fiction because I cant sit through a book without knowing what the authors intention is, his writings are about, etc... basically I can be reading book that contribute to my understanding and dont wish to merely read a tale.

With that said, I am trying to read Umberto Eco's Foucoults Pendulum at the moment. I actually put it down after reading a few pages last time because I turn my attention to other texts. I had chosen Umberto Ecos work precisly because it incorporates many non fiction or true ideas to his works. However when I was reading, I found that I was reading page after page of imagery/descriptions. I was hoping to read Tolstoy, James Joyce, and others but at this rate and in retrospect witt works of Melville, Twain, and others it seems to me I dont have the patience for a work of fiction unless they have something brilliant and novel about their ideas that are better than yours/mine. Does anyone else experience this?

My 2nd concern would be. How do you guys read fiction. In reading Umberto Ecos book... I come across very unfamiliar terms each page over and over, a lot of imagery and metaphors... do you guys simply skim over unfamiliar terms/allusions and continue to read or do you ugys stop look them up i na dictionary or etc and then continue. Also do you guys regress often in your readings such as reading a sentence over or a paragraph over before continuing. Or do you guys read the book once begining to end, and not constantly be looking up terms in the dictionary.

[Nightshade]

FOr me fiction is not about what the author intends but about the things you see, its like I dont know travelling to diffearant world while stuggled up on the sofa.
Now words are good to look up but that can get you distracted so what I do is this I start off and read and depending on how fast you read you get up and look things up. I actually do look things up all the time, whenever some has diesease I go off and look it up a referance to a book gets written dowwn and added to the I must read this list. Words if I cant glean the meanng get looked up and I start adding them to my conversation .

BUt usally if its just idea or concept I read the whole book then go off and look things up. But then again I tend to read whole novels in sitting or 2 so I can afford to do that if you are a slower reader maybe you cant.
well good luck:D

[B-Mental]

Ok, flat out if you are reading Ecos and having a hard time, then forget about even trying James Joyce. Lovers of literature are torn on his works, and you really have to focus. Personally, I've always had a very large vocabulary, so I read cover to cover. The secret to reading that I've found is to find books on topics, or which are based on topics that you are interested in. It definitely helps. Although there are still books out there that I find myself losing focus on. Sometimes you must plod your way through them.

[billhilton]

Eco's a great writer, but probably not the place to start if you're trying to develop a taste for fiction. Although his novels are more traditional in terms of construction and approach than, say, those of Joyce, they're still dense. He's also a very allusive writer, and expects quite a lot of his readers in terms of the breadth of their reading and general knowledge of literature and history.


If you do want to stick with Eco, try The Name of the Rose rather than Foucault. It works on the same level, but it's a stronger, more addictive story.

Other stuff you might like, considering your interest in authors who deal with a lot of interesting information: Arturo Perez-Reverte is a good writer, if you like smart detective fiction (The Fencing Master, The Seville Communion) as is Don Winslow (California Fire and Life, The Power of the Dog). If you can cope with something that has more of an SF tinge to it, consider Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere, American Gods.)

If you want to read something a little more literary (in the conventional sense) you could start off with factual books that have been written by people who usually produce novels, and, if you like them, move on to the author's fictional work. So, for example, you could read Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, and move on to Of Mice and Men and East of Eden if you decide you like his style.

Hope that helps!

[Goodfella]

Good wish dear!

[Matrim Cuathon]

i rarely come across terms that i dont understand but when i do its fairly easy to fgure them out in context. i dont read that much classic literature but i read it when i find it because i read fast and quite often so i cant be picky. if i find a book in my house that isnt obviously gonna suck, i read it.

you said that you dont want to read simply for a story. well, you are basically screwed with classic literature. its main thing is human nature as far as i can tell. you might try reading michael creighton(sp?) becuase he has lots of true science in his books, though sometimes he teeters into sci-fi.

[PeterL]

With that said, I am trying to read Umberto Eco's Foucoults Pendulum at the moment. I actually put it down after reading a few pages last time because I turn my attention to other texts. I had chosen Umberto Ecos work precisly because it incorporates many non fiction or true ideas to his works. However when I was reading, I found that I was reading page after page of imagery/descriptions. I was hoping to read Tolstoy, James Joyce, and others but at this rate and in retrospect witt works of Melville, Twain, and others it seems to me I dont have the patience for a work of fiction unless they have something brilliant and novel about their ideas that are better than yours/mine. Does anyone else experience this?

Eco writes non-fiction in a fictional pose. While reading his fictional works, keep in mind that Umberto is the world's foremost semioticist, and a well noted literary theorist. His novels deal with the same matters as do his non-fiction works, and they were often written around the same time. For example: The Name of the Rose is about symbols, and it was written in the same period as he wrote his theory of semiotics; and Foucault's Pendulum is about interpretation and misinterpretation, and it was written around the same time as The Limits of Interpretation. Eco has brilliant things to say, but they aren't on the surface at all poiints. The brilliant part of Foucault's Pendulum is toward the end, but I won't spoil it. A large part of that novel rambles about, and the purpose of the rambling doesn't become clear until near the end.



My 2nd concern would be. How do you guys read fiction. In reading Umberto Ecos book... I come across very unfamiliar terms each page over and over, a lot of imagery and metaphors... do you guys simply skim over unfamiliar terms/allusions and continue to read or do you ugys stop look them up i na dictionary or etc and then continue. Also do you guys regress often in your readings such as reading a sentence over or a paragraph over before continuing. Or do you guys read the book once begining to end, and not constantly be looking up terms in the dictionary.

I often have a dictionary handy. But when reading Eco, I read it in the same light as I would a work of non-fiction. Someytimes I read things several times, and sometimes the meaning of a particular work doesn't become clear until I have finished reading it, so many of the details that seemed unimportant become important in hindsight. For example, I didn't really get what Eco was doing in The Island of the Day Before until after I finished it, so the novel seemed very rambling.

Recently, I tried to write down exactly what the difference is between fiction and non-fiction. I thought about it for quite a while. The difference is not whether the words report actual facts. Many pieces of fiction report facts, while many pieces of non-fiction report fantasy as if it were fact. The difference is the intention of the author. Writers of fiction don't not intend that everything in their works should be taken as actual fact, while the converse is true of writers of non-fiction. Read everything with some salt, because the author's intention may cloud the facts.

[ehitskit00]

thank you guys for all these great replies.

I would like to clear up though something that was said. I am not just "begining" to read fiction. I like to distinguish fiction such as a love novel and what not and a literary work of art such as the ones that Im talking about. It is not that Im having trouble concentrating on these books, Im actually not, sometimes I feel like I am focusing too much on a sentence when others are just skimming or briefing them. Basically what is permeating in this thread for seems to be how to read.

How to read....
1. Do you read the book from begining to end, without regressions or reading over pages over and over before moving on. Or does one take their time reading (as I do) figuring out everything, unfamiliar terms, references, prior to moving on. Again these authors are not your love or thriller novelists. And that is why I am having this thread in the first place.

2. Do you guys look up unfamiliar vocabulary terms everytime you coem across a word? Or does this distract you guys constantly.

3. How many pages do you guys read a day in one book, or limit yourself too.

[PeterL]

How to read....
1. Do you read the book from begining to end, without regressions or reading over pages over and over before moving on. Or does one take their time reading (as I do) figuring out everything, unfamiliar terms, references, prior to moving on. Again these authors are not your love or thriller novelists. And that is why I am having this thread in the first place.

2. Do you guys look up unfamiliar vocabulary terms everytime you coem across a word? Or does this distract you guys constantly.

3. How many pages do you guys read a day in one book, or limit yourself too.

I almost always read from beginning to end without skipping or skinning. The only times that I do otherwise are when the book is really bad. The last time when I ignored a couple hundred pages, the author later told me that the book was schmaltz. I will confess that I sometimes skim descriptive passages. I don't really care what a forest looks like; I already know that.
I usually have a dictionary nearby, but I seldom use it. Most of the time meaning can be determined from contxt.
There is no reason to count pages, except to look at the page where you stop, so that you will be able to open to that point. Read until you feel like stopping. It isn't important whether you read ten pages or a couple hundred.

[ehitskit00]

peter, I like that point. In fact, what is one of my concerns about fictional works. Where there is about a page of description and imagery. Especially from my selective Non-Fiction works (where as soon as I see "fillers" I stop read because that is where I can deteremine the mind of the author, that he is in fact worth reading and brilliant, where instead of using fillers they include other great insight and inforamation). So yeah the point you make about skipping pages of description and etc I found myself doing that too with Eco. But then I realized... what is the point of fiction of this sort if I am going to be skipping on descriptions/imagery and so forth. I can just as well read a non fiction book about similar topics. If I can get your guys' input about this as well as the best methods for reading literary works that would be great.

[ehitskit00]

^^*"In fact, that is one of my concerns about...

[B-Mental]

How would you determine what to read if you are skimming. I know that some writers annoyingly put in to much detail, but it is all a part of the work. Can someone look at 3/4ths of a Picasso and still see it the same. Does the Mona Lisa look the same if you just look at the eyes? I think that the more you read fiction, the more you can revere the truly good, and recognise it. That said the only part of the book I skip are the introductions and forewards. I can always go back to them, and often they will or do give away plot/character/setting and sometimes endings.

[PeterL]

peter, I like that point. In fact, what is one of my concerns about fictional works. Where there is about a page of description and imagery. Especially from my selective Non-Fiction works (where as soon as I see "fillers" I stop read because that is where I can deteremine the mind of the author, that he is in fact worth reading and brilliant, where instead of using fillers they include other great insight and inforamation). So yeah the point you make about skipping pages of description and etc I found myself doing that too with Eco. But then I realized... what is the point of fiction of this sort if I am going to be skipping on descriptions/imagery and so forth. I can just as well read a non fiction book about similar topics. If I can get your guys' input about this as well as the best methods for reading literary works that would be great.

There is diescription that has substance and there is description that is just description. There isn't any easy way to tell the difference until you learn how the author writes. You already know that you have to learn how an author writes before you decide what, if anything to skip. Just because an author is noted doesn't mean that there isn't filler.

[masterlibrarian]

Hi ehitskit,
I think that you're too focused on the evaluation of "how much this book is useful" when you're reading a book...
Literature is art, and the art isn't necessary or useful...
So, if you skip a description passage of a fictional work you don't lose anything that contribute to your understanding of the universe, but you lose a bit of what contribute to your understing the thought of the author you're reading.
If you read a tale on a fisherman, maybe you can also learn something about fishing, but i'll surely find more stuff on fishing in an handbook...:)