#4: Damn this Book!
34. April 2014 von Unknown
Everyone has them - books you should read or you want to read, but it seems you can never read them to the end. Today I'm telling you my (nightmarish) stories about some books that are doomed.
There are several reasons, why we pick up books, we normally wouldn't read. Either we are forced to do so by teachers or people, who gifted us these books and now are expecting a reaction, or we love the challenge of reading something that has a reputation for being so boring, you will die in the process. Now, I love such a challenge from time to time, but I am just a small human, and I am very prone to failing. Here are some of my stories.
Thomas Mann - Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice)
Yes, Ladies and Gentleman, I will say it and I do not regret one word: I don't like Thomas Mann. He is arrogant, exalted, mind-numbing and utterly overrated. I don't care for his long sentences or his elaborate language. It is simply not possible to not fall asleep after two or three pages. Death in Venice is a very short book, only roundabout 100 pages. I never read beyond page 30, I believe, and I tried at least three times now. I bought the audiobook a while back, but I fear even this will not keep me from falling asleep. Too bad, Thomas Mann's 5 most favourite books are part of the reading recommendations list for my studies.
 |
| Thomas Mann's summer house in Nida, Lithuania. It's nice, isn't it? |
William Mackepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair
This is one of the books I read on my e-reader, when it was relatively new. I learned the hard way, that you can get stuck with a tome of epic proportions without knowing it by getting it in the e-pub form. Mr. Thackeray was my travel companion from Riga to Tallinn to Saaremaa, back to Pärnu, Riga again, Klaipeda, the Curonian spit and finally we said our Goodbyes in the port of Sassnitz, Germany after a long night on a trucker ferry without a cabin. Yes, I read it to the end - I had a lot of time on Baltic busses and the ferry and nothing else to read for the long 3 1/2 weeks. But that was quite alright, even though next time I'm there (in May, yay!) I will read something related to the country I am visiting and not the very long story, in which not so much happens. But I do not regret reading it. It could be worse...
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
I was given this book by a good friend with excellent taste as a present, when I went to live in Riga for a few months. Mr. Wallace took up space in my cramped in luggage, weighting at least one kilogram. Sometimes I wonder what I could have taken with me instead, that would have had at least more value to me in Riga - warm, long underwear, another dictionary, socks. Anyway, I took it with me, even though it already intimidated me by it's sheer size. I had enjoyed reading some of Wallace's shorter pieces before, but this was another league. I am ashamed to say, that I still did not read it. I used it as a door holder, table mat and to weight down papers. I will burn in hell for mistreating this book, I know it.
And lastly my current insanity....
Lev Tolstoj - Anna Karenina
Last year I thought to myself: "Mh, you should familiarise yourself with Russian literature." I have no idea, why I didn't start by reading Chechov, Pushkin or Gogol. No, it had to be Tolstoj. I'm stuck in the first third of Volume 1. I'm an expert now on Russian administration in the late 1800s. Anna hasn't been showing up yet...
Honorable mentions:
Goethe - The Sorrows of Young Werther (Kitsch!)
Umberto Eco - Prague Cemetery (took me 3 months)
Mario Vargas Llosa - The Storyteller (Yeah, no idea what it's about.)
Which books have you been harbouring on your shelves that you never read? Have you ever been intimidated by a book? Tell me in the comments.
Kategorie A to Z Challenge, Baltikum, Belletristik, Deutschland
I could never finish Crime and Punishment or Pride and Prejudice or anything by Hemingway . Of the books you list above I liked Anna Karen in haven't attempted any of the others, although I have had a few of them on "recommend reads" displays.
AntwortenLöschenI did read Anna Karenina and I had to put it down for a year before I finished it. Anna does show up and, I was kind of glad when she finally did herself in. The main "hero" of this book should have been happy but still the Russian Marxist ways get in there like a coldsore
AntwortenLöschenLOL you totally made me bust out laughing with the first one. Thank you! I needed a chuckle today :)
AntwortenLöschenHmm. I really don't like most of the "classics". They just...bore me to tears for the most part. But that may have had something to do with being forced to read them. I so don't like being told what I have to read or when.
Happy A to Z-ing!
~Anna
herding cats & burning soup.