Hostile reading

[shewhomust]

Every now and then (not very often, but from time to time) I find myself reading a book and fighting it every step of the way. I'm wondering if it's just me, or if it happens to anyone else? I'm not talking about books that you have to read for some reason - because they are set texts or necessary research or even Great Books - I'm talking about books you read for pleasure, that you like or enjoy enough to want to go on reading, but with something in the back of your mind going ":Oh, no! Oh, we're not going there, are we? Oh, I wish you wouldn't do that!"

I'm not crazy, I know there's nothing to be gained by this. An author's going to write the book that they're going to write; and even if I could (or wanted to) influence them otherwise, it wouldn't work on a book they've already written. And yet that's the effect that some books have on me.

I felt it with A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book, which I also found completely absorbing, and I felt it again with Gillian Cross's A Map of Nowhere. Gillian Cross is a reliably good - well, better than that - writer, and the title was intriguing, and I didn't look any further than that. With the result that I found myself reading a story that on plot summary alone I would have steered well clear of (Nick is caught between the charismatic gang, Wrong but Romantic, and the oddball loner, Right but Repulsive). Plot summary, as we know, is no guide to anything, but as Nick gets himself into a hole and keeps digging, makes bad decision after bad decision, something in my mind is saying, not to him but to the book: ":Don't do that! I told you I didn't want to go there!"

I'm sure it's an excellent book. It has some splendid things in it: the game, the landscape, a twist in the tail. It also has some things which I found unsubtle enough to be uncomfortable about, in an entirely rational way. But just at the moment, the thing that interests me is that overall reading against the text: do other people do this, or is it just me?

Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

No, you aren't alone. I actually felt that way about 'The English Patient' and 'Atlas Shrugged'. Both were books that I was reading because I felt, as a world citizen, as if I ought to have read them.

Both were books that I put down in disgust without a backward glance, once I remembered that I didn't have to keep reading. My life is too short and my time too precious to slog through annoying or tiresome books. ;-/

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

This is true, but not quite what I was trying to nail here (see further comments below).

But while I have your attention, could I take you up o that PINterest invitation, please? I'd like to have a play with it.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Done! ;-)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

And the rest was history!

Thank you.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I used to--but now I tend to set them aside. Life is too short.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Fair enough!

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

Add me to the list of people who used to do that (maybe it will get better, maybe I'll start seeing it differently, remember The Great Gatsby), but now consider life to be too short and books to be read too numerous.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I should probably revisit Gatsby: it went down easily enough, but didn't make a great impression.

I'm not sure we're talking about exactly the same thing, though (see further comments below)...

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

I read Gatsby once for pleasure, then twice more for courses. Twice I loathed it, but the third time was lucky and something clicked so that I understood and appreciated it. (I don't think I'll ever actually like it.)

I think I see what you're getting at, though I think by and large it's still too much of an investment for me to read that way. It's something I'm more inclined to do with TV.

[anef.livejournal.com]

I loved "The Children's Book" but hated the anti-fantasy subtext.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the sort of thing. I also hated the roman à clef element: these were real historical people she was playing fast and loose with...

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

It happens to me all the time. A book is well-written, it pulls me... and I am shivering inside.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

That's beautifully put. And I think you're right about those three elements. This isn't just about those Great Books - or even just good books - that we don't get on with, it's about books which pull us, and yet we pull back.