While on the subject of books that I've crossed off of the List incomplete, I figure I might as well confess: I have abandoned more than a couple books this summer. Guilty as charged: They are classics of great literature; how can I expect to be a decent reader or writer when I can't even get through ----?; I've got to give them a fair shot... I'll admit that I didn't get past page 50 in any of these books, but I've got to be frank--I wasn't enjoying them. So I figured I'd just set them free and move on. Maybe they are the kind of books I will appreciate when I'm older. After all, if I'm stowing Proust for my over-the-hill years, why not save a few more?
Abandoned books:
The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
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Loosly based off of Nick Hornby's "Stuff I've Been Reading" column in "The Believer," Hungry Wonder (formerly "Polysyllabic Spree") charts my attempts to conquer my summer reading list without spending all my Ks on books.
On literature:
"Books are, let's face it, better than everything else. If we played cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go fifteen rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time. Go on, try it. The Magic Flute vs. Middlemarch? Middlemarch in six. The Last Supper vs. Crime and Punishment? Fyodor on points... You might get the occasional exception--Blonde on Blonde might smash up The Old Curiosity Shop, say, and I wouldn't give much for Pale Fire's chances against Citizen Kane. And every now and then you'd get a shock, because that happens in sport, so Back to the Future III might land a lucky punch on Rabbit, Run; but I'm still backing literature twenty-nine times out of thirty." -Nick Hornby
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