Posted on 02/03/2014 2:13:32 PM PST by jocon307
Have you ever lied about reading a book? Maybe you didn’t want to seem stupid in front of someone you respected. Maybe you rationalized it by reasoning that you had a familiarity with the book, or knew who the author was, or what the story was about, or had glanced at its Wikipedia page. Or maybe you had tried to read the book, even bought it and set it by your bed for months unopened, hoping that it would impart what was in it merely via proximity (if that worked, please email me).
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
yes, i have read Hunchback, and i did love it... :)
I started reading Moby Dick at the same time, and started to get into it, but ultimately found it too long and the language unfamiliar. (Hey—I was 13 and it was both the longest and oldest novel I had yet attempted.) Several years later I found my girlfriend's copy on her shelf when I was visiting, and though I wouldn't have had time to read the whole book in a single overnight visit, I at least found the first few chapters a little easier going. Seven or eight years makes a difference. It's on my reading list for the near future, as is Democracy in America.
Les Misérables I am currently reading and am presently about 200 pages from the end (Jean Valjean just set Javert free at the barricade). It is now the longest novel I have ever read, being approximately as long as the Old Testament.
As for the rest, apart from A Tale of Two Cities, I have no interest.
Yep, and as you noted, they were often paid by the word, which is pretty strong motivation for more effusive prose.
A critical edition of Dickens' books will probably tell you where the breaks were between installments, but an observant reader can probably spot them. Oliver Twist, for example, has some pretty obvious cliffhangers.
The series also is available in audiobook read by Patrick Tull, who is just amazing.
I enjoyed every day that I opened that book. I can see now that it is an easy book to abridge. You just cut all the many levels of detail and thoughts and perceptions until you are left with the bare plot. It’s much better to read the entire book. The only parts that drug for me were when Tolstoy expounded his theories of history.
“found...the language unfamiliar.”
This was the problem I had with Arthur Conan Doyle’s lesser-known-to-us-but-more-famous-in-his-lifetime book “The White Company”.
It is a meticulously researched story about the 30 years war (I think, too lazy to look it up right now) and some fine fellows who go to fight in it.
It’s all taking place a very long, long time ago and the dialogue brilliantly reflects that. It really is brilliant, because you can understand every word, even though it is all very archaic. But I found it exhausting to read.
I’d like to try it again someday, but I’m thinking I might wait to read it to my grandson, it’s really a boy’s story.
“...I found most lie about reading Uncle Toms Cabin. It is a wonderful book and if read, you will be confused as to why being called an Uncle Tom is an insult rather than praise.”
That is interesting! I know this book was in my grandmother’s house, but I never read it, and I don’t think I have it now. But what you say makes me want to read it.
It’s a very important book, isn’t it? Even if it’s not great lit or whatever.
“General rule of thumb is if a character has a speech that goes on longer than a page, skip the next 10.”
LOL, my friend and I say: when you can hear the author dragging in the soap box, watch out!
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/903/903-h/903-h.htm
“The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell. Peat-cutters on Blackdown and fishers upon the Exe heard the distant throbbing rising and falling upon the sultry summer air. It was a common sound in those parts—as common as the chatter of the jays and the booming of the bittern. Yet the fishers and the peasants raised their heads and looked questions at each other, for the angelus had already gone and vespers was still far off. Why should the great bell of Beaulieu toll when the shadows were neither short nor long? “
“The archbishop is played by the man who created the role of Jean ValJean in the original stage play.”
I did not know that, very interesting. I saw it in the movies with my daughter, we liked it a good deal. I thought hubby would like it too, and he did, sort of, but his big complaint (and not invalid I don’t think) was that all the male roles were written for tenors, he was missing a basso here and there.
(If I screwed up the music lingo, forgive me, I’m ignorant to a large extent!)
I’ve read most of Crichton’s books, but not that one. Your description reminds me of State of Fear, but in that case he was debunking global warming. Most of his books are not that way though. Jurassic Park for example. I liked Timeline, Prey, and Next a lot.
“I didn’t get a happy ending with the rabbits, that it’s been more than 30 years, and I still complain...”
THANK YOU for that spoiler, now I shall never read that book.
You have saved me from useless angst, it is a mitzvah for you!
I started a couple of those books. I got about 20-30 pages into each and nothing much had happened, so I quit. I love reading good books, but I don’t have the patience to stick with something that slow.
“I never did, and as far as I know still don’t, understand one word Shakespeare wrote.”
Hubby and I watched some PBS show about Shakespeare’s plays, and one thing I really noticed was that the British actors, for some incomprehensible reason, make the language much more understandable. It really stood out for me.
“I did read all the James Bond books...”
Yes! I read those too, maybe not all of them, but many.
For some reason, when I was in Public School back in the bad old days of the late 60s/early 70s, folks donated paperback books to our school. And among them were the Bond books, so I read them. This was when I was in 6th grade.
Let’s face it, they are kind of racy for children of that age. It amazed me that we were “permitted” to read them, but I enjoyed them and I survived!
“After you jocon...............”
Very flattering, but your idea deserves its own thread!
Ping me if you do it!
There was a recent interview of Fleming tho it was filmed many years ago. the interviewer asked why Fleming never used 4 letter words in his books.
Fleming said it was probably his Scottish ancestors who would not have approved. Then he said he just didn’t like to see four letter words in books.
He would put in some slightly silly words for characters such as Pussy Galore and Plenty O’Toole.
“That’s actually rather strange since Anna Karenina is perhaps the greatest work of fiction I’ve ever read. I read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the sixth grade. The whole thing. Yeah, I was that kid.”
LOL! I’m sure you were adorable!
I think once I slog through war & peace I’ll try Anna K. I saw a lot of good things about it when the movie came out. Across the board it was, this is the greatest novel ever, movie ....eh.
I read Madam Bovary once, underwhelmed by that. I guess he might have called it “real housewife of France” or somesuch.
“In the Russian novel they neither want nor get each other but brood about it for 800 pages.”
Yes.
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