Monday Questionnaire
Float Book Club edition
1. What was the last book you read extremely quickly, either because it moved that way naturally or because you wanted to get it the hell over with?
2. What was the last book you read extremely slowly, either because it moved that way naturally or because you wanted to give each page its deliberate and due attention?
3. If you buy a book, get it home, read it, and hate it, what do you do with it afterward?
posted by Eric @ 9:32 AM
5 Comments:
1. I had to read Robert Stone's Outerbridge Reach for class, and I feel guilty saying this because Stone is first-rate and from what I can tell the novel is too. But something about it just wasn't ringing with me that weekend, and so I decided to just stare at the book while turning the pages rapidly, so as to soak up through osmosis whatever I could of it. I ended up faking my way through the class discussion pretty well, though.
2. Aristotle's Poetics, Butcher translation, probably for a combination of the two reasons.
3. If it's just a regular bad book and I kept the receipt, I'll return it. I keep my books in good enough condition when I read that I don't feel guilty about this. But if it's an especially bad book, I'll sometimes throw it away. Not the wisest move economically, I know, but it's a sort of moral stance in particular cases. Even if some other buyer would want it if I returned it, some books just need to be removed from circulation.
1. "Prep," by Curtis Sittenfeld (not because I wanted to get it over with, but because it just flowed that way.)
2. I'm currently reading "The Elephant Vanishes" by Haruki Murakami that way (giving each page attention). It's a collection of short stories, so it doesn't really lend itself to moving slowly.
3. Sell it on Amazon.com, or give it to a family member as a holiday or birthday gift. Many a crappy book has gone to my sister...
1. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab by Gideon Dafoe. It moves very fast.
2. I'm stuck in the middle of Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg (because it rather drags) and The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell (because it's dense). But the top prize goes to Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das, which I've been reading for about 4 years. It's good, but it's packed.
3. Return it to the library, same as I do with the good ones. If I bought a bad book, I likely never finished it.
A helpful hint to kstyle for reading "Wickett's Remedy" -- skip all the marginalia, and the stuff that appears to relate to nothing at the end of each chapter. This will leave you almost entirely confused by the time you get to the end, and it won't make the book go all that much faster, but it should help some. (This is how I slogged my way through "Wickett's Remedy," right before selling it to some unsuspecting patron on Amazon.com.)
Erin, thanks for the hint. I wonder: is it worth slogging my way through? Should I retreat instead? And how did the author of the lively, fascinating Bee Season end up writing something which requires slogging?
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