Do you finish books even if you find them boring? What if they're highly praised "classic" books?

Do you finish books even if you find them boring? What if they're highly praised "classic" books?

I have spent most of the past two years not reading at all because I've started boring books that I feel like I have to finish or else people will call me a pleb.

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I stop. Life isn't a school exam. Hated Master and Margarita, some others I can't recall.

Ironically I (OP) really liked that book when reading it despite all allegories going over my head. I even read it back when I was much newer to reading.

I have given up on a tale of two cities early on twice. I persevered halfway through Nicholas Nickleby but it was just so awful I had to postpone it. I'm now about three quarters through the brothers Karamazov and it is horrendous

I just keep rotating between books. I'll never read everything I want to in my lifetime. Some of my best reads have been difficult ones though.

Finishing books by force is one of the most pseud things I can think of.

I even have a theory that people who often don't finish books are more intelligent than others

I'm really tempted to give up "The Handmaid's Tale." It's just so fucking excruciating.

I dropped JR 200 pages in and I dropped Blood Meridian 2/3. The latter was just so fucking awful.

I found blood meridian alright, the last third was the best part. It's at least interesting, hardly a bore in my opinion

>Blood Meridian was awful

Shit, I'm reading it right now and I think it's amazing. I'm only 1/4 through tho.

I finish them

Some books are redeemed by certain parts, won't know unless you finish them

I find it gives me insight to the author, the writing style and somewhat the literature movement

A book only takes a couple of hours to read. I work 8 hours a day doing something i dont enjoy. Reading a book that I don't enjoy for like 5 hours total is nothing

BK was good up until the elder died. Then the author spends the rest of the book trying to be funny in that courtroom farce.

I try to finish them, but a few I just couldn't and rather wanted to try something else.

Some notable ones were: The Sound and the Fury, Pride & Prejudice, Gulliver's Travels, and The Grapes of Wrath.

I wish BM was just its first 2 chapters all the way through, action-wise. After that: I hope you like long descriptions of the desert

Expound on this theory, please.

When I read a book I'm not into my mind wanders, but my eyes keep moving. By the time I realize I got lost in thought I'm halfway through a page.


How do I stop this?

what I have accepted is that there are all sorts of attention lures to distract you from genuine introspection - which does most certainly occur while reading excellent literature.

like me posting on this site right now, me jumping out of bed and looking at the mirror, me getting caught up in pictures of cute girls, me watching silly YouTube videos.

However, I do finish books. I just have periods where I feel like I am not in enough of a lucid state to appreciate them to their maximum. I want to vivdly comprehend and engage with everything that is written there.

To that end, I do a lot of "brain hacking" (excuse the shitty 21st century neologism) things like jogging 3 miles in the morning, eating a huge breakfast, taking fish oil supplements, making sure I get a good nights sleep, and consuming insane amounts of caffeine. Then I have the self-discipline to every once in awhile just be like "fuck this - start reading" because I know it's much more fulfilling than any other activity I may be caught up in.

>started count of monte cristo about two years ago
>about three quarters of the way through
It's just such a FUCKING slog. Every so often I read a bit here and there but I'm literally just doing it for e-peen at this point.

The Iliad for me ;_; I'm forcing my way through it right now

read what you want man, don't let Veeky Forums make you feel pleb, if you force yourself you will hate it, if you read something you like you'll enjoy it and will want to do it more. who cares about what others think.

>Do you finish books even if you find them boring?

No. I'm past that insecure phase in my life. You either like something or you don't. Whether it's objectively a good book or not has little to do with it.

I think it's worth doing a few times to at least see what "good books" can sometimes end up as. It can happen you don't appreciate a book until it's completely over.

Yeah, sure, but it's usually not worth it. It's one thing when we're talking about works that are 200-300p, but once you go up into the 1000p+ count it's simply not worth it.

>i actually read atlas shrugged

I push through a lot of things, because I know I won't read it otherwise, but sometimes I really do not give a fuck.

I stopped reading Great Expectations after like five pages and Demons after getting halfway through.

I give up on video games and movies quicker than I do books.

I took me 5 months to get past the first 110 pages of Dracula. It was fucking grueling and I stopped and read other things but finally got back to it. Once Van Helsing appears its like the story finally comes together and gets interesting but fuck was the early parts tough. Just slog through it. Sometimes you have to read up to half the book before it gets good, especially with "classics".

>The Iliad for me ;_; I'm forcing my way through it right now
how can you be forcing your way through this action movie man? killing and even more killing.

It's a whole lot of people I don't know. It's hard to keep track of everyone.

>people will call me a pleb.
only teens lad, adults dont care what other people have or havent read. it almost never comes up in conversaton. read what appeals to you and enjoy it .

I wish I could enjoy Cormac like user's do on here. I also dropped Blood Meridian. Just not my thing.

>>i actually read atlas shrugged

Hey, that one wasn't so bad. Just John Galt's speech wasn't worth it.

i understand it was like that for me too, what part are you on? don't try and remember everyone, just remember the main guys names that keep coming up and make notes on a notepad or something. keep at it lad.

Listen to the Trojan War podcast first. How the fuck could you possibly think reading The Iliad without any context is a good idea?

Pandarus hurt Menelaus with an arrow.

I read Theogony before I started on the Iliad. I'll try that podcast (by Jeff Wright?), thanks.

Do what you want and serendipity may bring you back into the book. Reading the Histories atm. I got bogged down in the first chapter so I opened the book in the middle at random and started reading from there. I happened to land right before the Greco-Persian wars that we're all familiar with and became interested in reading the original account. Much happier to go back to the beginning and read about Troy et al now
>Just not my thing
legitimate
t. Cormac fan

>I read Theogony before I started on the Iliad. I'll try that podcast (by Jeff Wright?), thanks.

Mate, that's like saying you read Genesis to go read about the Cold War. Useful, but... Not really. And yeah that's the one. He has a nice delivery and it's only twenty episodes long.

Genesis didn't have the same characters as the Cold War. Theogony had a lot of characters that show up in the Iliad and explained their backgrounds somewhat.

Thanks, I've been looking for another podcast to listen to and Dan Carlin's been taking a while lately.

what is it about the iliad do you find boring or uninteresting? is it only the tons of characters in it? or the fact thats its like what? 400 pages? Because the Iliad is action packed but then if you don't like it, then the Odyssey will be even worse for you. i mean it has action but nothing like the iliad.

I have been reading The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged at least once a year since about 2005. I was royally pissed it took me that long to "discover" them. I also have been reading Dune about once a year since the 80s

>I have been reading The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged at least once a year

How the fuck do you have time for that? Atlas Shrugged took me around 10 days reading all day every day, when I had free time in the summer. I wouldn't have the energy to revisit a story like that and waste all that time.

It's just difficult for me to care about what happens to people in it since they aren't very fleshed out a lot of the time, or maybe it's just my ignorance until I listen to that podcast or read more on the subject, but as it is that's how I feel about it.

>A book only takes a couple of hours to read.

It takes me just under 3 weekends(Fri afternoon through Sun afternoon) to read if I don't read it during the week. Each time I read it I get faster due to the familiarity with the content. I've worn out two paperbacks of The Fountainhead so far. I'm so glad I can get copies for like a buck at the thrift store almost any time I need a new copy. I still keep the first copy I marked up, underlined and made personal notes in the margins. I keep it together with rubber bands. I look through it a few times a year to read the underlined stuff and notes at random as well.

>since the 80s

O L D F A G A L E R T

If I'm more than halfway through them I'll generally finish them, on retrospection some of the books I've disliked reading the most have informed my reading tastes far more than books I've actually liked.
Really? I read it years ago and was surprised by how incredibly breezy it felt despite it's length.

(OP)
this:
it's your life. people telling you that you have to spend your free time on shit you don't like are lying to you.

Nah. If I don't like a book after 100 pages I'll happily give up on it. 100 pages is about 3 hours of my time - hardly a massive waste.

If I don't want to finish them to the extent I start reading another book, I just record which page I read to, and get rid of the book. If you hate a book SO much you start reading another you're unlikely to get an itch to read it for a long time.

I have a minimalist bent and hate keeping around things I won't use and reminders of things that make me fustrated.

I finish them in almost all cases.

There are only 2 books I've never finished.

The first was The Trial, by Kafka. I fully acknowledge that it's a brilliant clever work of literature, but I could not finish it. Can't really tell you why.

Also couldn't finish Inherent Vice. It was crap. Pynchons worst by miles.

I think there are one or two more but I can't remember them.

>A book only takes a couple of hours to read.

>Pseudointellectualism intensifies

I finish every book I start. I find that sometimes I may change my opinion somewhere along the book. Sometimes it also happens that I think much better of the book looking back to it, although I didn't enjoy it much, than other that were a fun read but they weren't so memorable.


>The Trial, by Kafka
This happened to me as well. I find hard to get through, but looking back to it, for some reason, it becomes one of my favourite books ever.
The experience fo reading The Trial was so unique that regardless of the moments I had to force myself to finish it, there is some unique there that makes it shine more than other books that were fun to read.

I agree there. I'm going to return to it and read it again. I wasn't mentally in the right place for the oppressive atmosphere.

I felt similarly about Crime and Punishment. Mentally it was difficult and oppressive, but after I finished it it became one of my favourite books.

Reading the Veeky Forums starter kit, I found Catch-22 a bit boring but I persevered through it. It wasn't that bad, ultimately. I stopped One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest 50 pages in though.

most of the time yeah

if i can grind through moby dick's endless "time for Useless Whale Fact #4395!" chapters i can grind through most

He can't.

Usually highly praised "classic" books keep my attention. I hear "just have fun with it" applied to a lot of bad fiction and I find these to be the most difficult to read and the least fun. That's not to say something like Paradise Lost is 100% pure entertainment, but I recently read Stephen King's It, and it took 4 times as long to read as did Gravity's Rainbow or War & Peace, just because I found it so painfully stupid and boring that it was an incredible slog.

This happens even with books that I like, personally. What I do is I stop reading for a minute, close my eyes, drink water or something, or maybe even have a small meditation session. Your brain needs rest, and sleep is not enough.

I feel ya man, took me 3 months to read Catch-22. It almost put me off literature entirely.

I have seen unironic posts critical of stopping books.

But lets be honest. We are humans. We will live and die, and have little time in between to sit and read. Why force yourself through something that is not resonating and that you will not retain?

Suppose we read about 52 books a year between 18 and a reasonable death at 82 from a heart attack. That is only 3400 books in a lifetime. Why fill it with trash?

It is, only a very small vocal minority, and a slightly larger group of followers who were dissuaded from reading it by said minority think its bad.

The only "classic" book i struggled to finish was crime and punishment, but i was 18 and didnt read much. I've only dropped 2 books: On The Road and I, Robot.

I try to finish, especially if it is the first book by a particular author. I stalled about 100 pages into The Fountainhead, left it alone for a week, and then went back and finished it. Same thing happened with Great Expectations. I dropped Oliver Twist 50 pages in because by then I had read Great Expectations, Two Cities, and Bleak House, and I knew it wouldn't get any better.

Just read whatever you want, the difference in quality between most "classics" and whatever crap is popular now is exaggerated.

Don't try Proust then

Man, I loved the first 2 volumes, but I don't think I can make myself read anymore. I can't say that he's not a genius, and I definitely took a lot away from his books and love them, but I can't put myself through that grind again

Same. I feel like such a pleb.
>what is it about the iliad do you find boring or uninteresting?

What said is precisely what I find boring. There is a lot of action and death, but I simply do not feel the payoff. It doesn't feel like there is enough buildup for it and so it never really leaves an impact despite the vividness.

The exposition on the characters and their achievements feels dry. I want to know who these people are, not what they have achieved. A lot of them feel quite one-note and there is very little diversity in the cast. Most of them are the honorable warrior type in one way or another, so I end up finding Paris a breath of fresh air despite his character not being the type I usually like.

The Iliad falls into that awkward spot where the cast is not small and focused enough to truly develop them, but it still tries and thus ends up being simple exposition and the action isn't enough to carry the book. I would've probably preferred it had it either been half as long or twice as long.

The Odyssey seems more focused, so should I try that?

This is very much the point of the Iliad. It captures the interesting life snuffed out, the utter monotony of death on the battlefield, all of these things.

Also remember it was to be read aloud and not all at once.

>This is very much the point of the Iliad. It captures the interesting life snuffed out, the utter monotony of death on the battlefield, all of these things.
I feel like have a fairly good understanding of this despite not finishing the book and this isn't the first time I'm reading something with these themes, so I should probably quit.

>Also remember it was to be read aloud and not all at once.
I've been "reading" it for six months now. In no way did I try to read it all at once, so there's not really much that can be done on that front.

One who flew over the Cuckoo;s nest. I was forced to read that in 8th grade back in the 80s. Nothing makes a kid want to give up on reading than being forced to read that then they are 12/13 years old. I thinknschools make middle schoolers read dystopian and outsider type books to predispose kids to avoid them when they hit their late teens when they might actually make a kid think and they will understand the themes and concepts better.

only if I had to for a class.

Otherwise, I stop. I'll give a book a fair chance, but if it fails to grab my attention even a little, I drop it.

I'm not here to impress people on Veeky Forums. They're not the be all, end all of literature (though some of them would like to think they are)

Go to youtube and search for reading music, focus, concentration or music for ADD. The stuff with Binaural Beats is a good place to start. It won't eliminate mind wandering and losing focus but it helps cut it down. I have an old boom box that plays mp3 files from a data disc. I use a youtube to mp3 converter and burn 6 to 8 hours of that stuff to disc and play it at high volume. the "music is simple ambient and its not distracting at all but those binaural beats and steady tones in the background of the music help me keep better focus and much less mind wandering while I read.

youtube.com/watch?v=KHbJi8qai50

This is how i know im fucked in the head

I loved bros k from beginning to end even though i am an agnostic satan worshipper with a penchant for chaos who usually hates the old world value systems that so many others 100+ years or earlier show

There are great books I would never have finished if I had just given up when I was still an unrefined, undeveloped mindlet.

For example, I struggled to get into Pere Goriot at first, but it's one of the greatest novels I've read. Now I even like the beginning, and I've read the novel six times in different languages. I wasn't even a beginning reader at the time.

I don't recall all the great books I considered quitting on, but I recall the feeling I had when I went from "geez, this is boring, no way I'm going to finish this book" to "HOLY SHIT THIS IS GREAT".

I really only give up on books that are clearly inferior and don't have anything of interest (like story, characters, tangents) to motivate me to continue reading. Pleb books by pleb authors with nothing to say and no skill to mask the deficiency.

But I have never read a book that went from awful to good.

Many these magnum opus books are self indulgent as fuck.

Thanks for articulating what caused me to have trouble reading the Iliad.

>it's your life. people telling you that you have to spend your free time on shit you don't like are lying to you.
That's not true. Sacrifice is a necessary part of human life.

Depends on how you define awful. I've read books I found boring as fuck for the first ~couple hundred pages and then its gets great. Sometimes you have to roll the dice and slog it out. I find JK Rowling unreadable yet people buy her shit books by the millions so its a matter of perspective. I don't worry about what other people think once I've decided to read a book. If I like it and enjoyed the read that is all that matters. I've had people lose their shit because I state that The Fountainhead is one of my all time favorite novels and I re-read it often.

>Because the Iliad is action packed but then if you don't like it, then the Odyssey will be even worse for you. i mean it has action but nothing like the iliad.
False. Many people who find the Iliad boring love the Odyssey. They're just very different poems.

The Iliad was a bit of a slog for me in the middle when i first read it (the "introduce this guy > spend 30 lines talking about his family > spend 20 lines talking about how whoever is the focus of the current book kills him" got kind of old). I appreciate it more going back to it. Maybe I read it too young.

I think we can all agree the end of book 2 where Homer lists off a gorillion boats is boring as fuck though. I realise its purpose, but goddamn.

I thought Homage to Catalonia was terrifically mundane and stopped about one third in.

I had to read On the Road and I was waiting for a pay off that never came, well, maybe it did but I couldn't physically manage the last 80 pages.

>The Odyssey seems more focused, so should I try that?
That's what a lot of people prefer about it. For the Odyssey, Homer focuses on Odysseus nearly completely. It follows a more contemporary structure because of that. It's also breaks it up by its non-linear timeline, so it doesn't feel too much like each book is the same.

I'd say you could give up on The Iliad for now and go to The Odyssey, but I don't think you should give up on it completely. The memes about its importance aren't just memes, and I felt like it really came together more at the end.

Just remember that its primary audience were military guys who had it read to them, which is (one reason) why Homer really loves these individual god-mode "battles" in it.

sell The Fountainhead to me, user

I don't, but sometimes I pick them up again. I'm currently struck at almost half of Auto da fe'. Hell, I've passed through heavier things, but this one...

>fountainhead
>story about an autistic, pyromaniac rapist living out his dreams
sounds about right
whatever floats yer boat
nothanks.jpg
etc

No, I'm too stubborn. I've read Kafkas most rambling texts, no matter how little I understood them. It does really kill my motivation to read though. But it's usually because the book is too hard to follow, I'm honestly not incredibly critical of what I read, I just let it flow.

He didn't finish his theory.

I'll probably try to read the Iliad in the future. I'll quit for now though.

Sometimes. On other occasions I find the prose skillful and try to appreciate that, then force finish the book. I haven't force read anything for its "classic" status for years.

>brothers Karamazov
>horrendous

I can understand finding it a bit boring, but calling it horrendous is a bit of an overstatement