mande2013
10-28-2018, 01:07 PM
I have a dilemma. There are so many 'canon' books I've read significant chunks of without ever having actually finished. Here's a partial list: Cousin Bette, Madame Bovary, Swann's Way, Lost Illusions, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers K, The Idiot, Moby Dick, Anna Karenina, and so on and so forth, including even shorter works, such as The Trial. I have enjoyed reading a significant amount of the above, but I can't seem to just finish anything. And anytime I come up with a 'system' by which I feel I'll get a book read completely it fails.
I'm currently reading Love in the Time of Cholera, and it's not TOO trying to read, but whenever I attempt to read any 'important' pre-WW II work of literature I feel like any strategy I use to actually finish it fails unless it's something that isn't too challenging to read like Therese Raquin, for instance. I'll say to myself no matter what I'll read 25-30 pages a day of said book and within a month will be done. It doesn't work. I'll read it aloud, since presumably it'll help me be more engaged with the text. It doesn't work, etc.. I managed to finish The Red and the Black, since I made a pledge that I wouldn't touch another book until I had it read completely, but the effort seemed forced at times, especially as I ploughed my way through the second-half of the book. It's like after 180-200 pages of some think tome by Stendhal or Balzac I'll "run out of juice" so to speak, even if I'm enjoying and appreciating the book.
Now I won't lie. There's an element of wanting to have them read along with my genuinely wanting to read them. Either way, it's frustrating. I feel like I can't just "put my feet up and read" something like Madame Bovary or what-have-you, and I hate the idea of reading a *major* work of literature in such a way that reading 4-5 pages itself is like some monastic/meditative effort in which I'm communicating with the Gods.
Granted, much of this frustration may have been compounded by my attempting to master reading in a second language, French of course as can probably be gleaned from my reading list.
For the record, I don't find reading Moby Dick in English any easier than reading Madame Bovary or Balzac in the original French.
I'm currently reading Love in the Time of Cholera, and it's not TOO trying to read, but whenever I attempt to read any 'important' pre-WW II work of literature I feel like any strategy I use to actually finish it fails unless it's something that isn't too challenging to read like Therese Raquin, for instance. I'll say to myself no matter what I'll read 25-30 pages a day of said book and within a month will be done. It doesn't work. I'll read it aloud, since presumably it'll help me be more engaged with the text. It doesn't work, etc.. I managed to finish The Red and the Black, since I made a pledge that I wouldn't touch another book until I had it read completely, but the effort seemed forced at times, especially as I ploughed my way through the second-half of the book. It's like after 180-200 pages of some think tome by Stendhal or Balzac I'll "run out of juice" so to speak, even if I'm enjoying and appreciating the book.
Now I won't lie. There's an element of wanting to have them read along with my genuinely wanting to read them. Either way, it's frustrating. I feel like I can't just "put my feet up and read" something like Madame Bovary or what-have-you, and I hate the idea of reading a *major* work of literature in such a way that reading 4-5 pages itself is like some monastic/meditative effort in which I'm communicating with the Gods.
Granted, much of this frustration may have been compounded by my attempting to master reading in a second language, French of course as can probably be gleaned from my reading list.
For the record, I don't find reading Moby Dick in English any easier than reading Madame Bovary or Balzac in the original French.