/lit/ - Literature

Yeah I finished Spengler's Decline even though I couldn't keep up with his shit. Still regret it. I plan to re-read it properly one day.

No

>>19226353
Forcing yourself to finish a book is a fool’s game. If you think it’s without merit then there’s no point. If you think there’s some merit but you’re not ready to fully digest it’s better to leave it and return to it a later time. Especially when reading fiction it’s better to quit while you’re ahead and spent your time on a different book.

Depends how much is left. I'm not ashamed to say I quit Brothers Karamazov about 2/3rds in. No way I was gonna read 350 pages of that shit

No.
And if I try (for example if the book is good but I'm just not getting it for whatever reason) then the gaps between me attempting to read it grow so big that I end up forgetting major points and the only remedy would be to start over again.

>>19226353
I do, I try. But it's funny the one books I am enjoying reading but for external reasons have to stop for a while, those are harder to get back on track.

>>19226353
Yes, I tend to finish what I start, ofcourse if I hate the book it will take me longer, but some times books get better so you start liking it again.

>>19226353

A read the first 20 or so pages of Sailor who Fell from Grace. Kind of feel like dropping because its not doing anything for me. But I'm afraid I'm gonna reinforce bad habits, lapse back into indecisiveness and just stop reading. Perhaps I need to pick better books? Maybe I'll try some more Kafka or Junger.

>>19226353
No fuck that

I can't force myself to finish anything because I have ADD

>>19226353
Sometimes but usually not.

>didn't finish

>Ulysses, Finnegans Wake
Hated it

>War and Peace
Boring

>Man Without Qualities
Will get back to it, very good

>Hobbes' Leviathan
Skipped a section, need to re-read it.

>In Search of Lost Time
Barely could stomach 100 pages

>Gravity's Rainbow, Recognitions, Harlot's Ghost
Hated them

>Demons
Bad translation, need to re-read. Good.

>Sound and Fury, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Terrible

>Golden Bowl
Overwhelmed me with kino, need to re-read.

>world of william clissold
Very long, need to get back to.

>>19226367
Why? Dostoevsky is fun imo

>>19226367
Normally I'm a bloodyminded bastard who will finish any book, with gritted teeth if I have to. But I'm fucked if I could finish The Idiot.
Life's too short to read Dostoevsky. He believed in redemption through suffering, starting with his readers.

>>19228680
>>>/co/

>>19226353
yes

>>19228702
Meh, I just don't consider some of them great literature. I've finished other works you'd call impressive, on-the-other-hand: Moby Dick, twice for instance, and all of Melville.

>>19228692
I really cannot fathom this sentiment, I think he's absolutely hilarious and endlessly fun to read. I understand thinking he is not first-rate, but he's very fun.

>>19226353
I lost interest in The Secret History about a month ago. So dull.

>>19228692
I also dropped The Idiot pretty far in
The pettiness of almost every character is pure suffering if you do not care much about them

>>19226353
No. Dropping books build character, anon.
Drop em like a cheap hooker.

>>19226353

I had to force myself to finish "The Realms Of Tartarus" by Brian Stableford.

He had some good ideas, but that may have been the worst writing style I've ever encountered.
Lots of telling instead of showing.
Lots of narrator switching, sometimes from paragraph to paragraph.
And all made possible by some convenient extraterrestrial that just showed up.

>>19226353
Sometimes yeah reading is so fun I don't mind a challenge often there is a pay off sometimes it's just so thick i want to give up

>>19226591
>Sailor who Fell from Grace
Nah drop it, it's only good for people who are particularly new to the kind of ideas and "twists" it presents. If you weren't shocked when the little nigga was peeping you're beyond anything else it has to offer. If you really want to, spoil yourself on the ending and you'll see how facile the book is.

>>19228680
>Dostocuck is a pleb
Like clockwork

My notable dnfs
>Infinite Jest
Utter trash
>Gravity's Rainbow
Got filtered, will get back to it some day
>Iliad
10000 dudes get their groins speared how interesting
>Idiot
I can't believe Dostoevsky wrote something so fucking boring, I read and enjoyed all his other major novels
>Don Quixote
Medieval Big Bang Theory
>Moby Dick
50 page novelette encased within a whaling manual
>Fahrenheit 451
The books got lost with about 20 pages left unread. It's been a decade and I never got around to it

Sometimes, it depends

>>19226353
No force required. Reading a book is not exactly a massive commitment. Finish what you start before quitting becomes a habit. I have only regretted finishing a book once and I have been surprised by what it turned out to be more times than I could guess at. Even when I was not pleasantly surprised, I always got something of worth out of finishing.

>>19226353
most of the time, yeah. force myself to read, too. if i had it my way i'd just fuck hot chicks all the time. but i try to be civilized.

Nope, usually I can tell within a few pages if a book's prose is clicking or not. Though some books begin with promise and lose their way... I dump them as soon as this happens.

No but I do a pretty decent job of picking them out so I haven't needed to drop a book for quite some time.

>>19226353
Not anymore

Not really. It only takes a few hours to finish a regular sized novel so I mostly just power through it and complain about it on 4chan afterwards.

No but I force other people to finish books, at the library or in book stores.

>>19231085
It takes me a month to read a 300 page novel.

>>19226353
The only book I've ever needed to force myself to finish was the book of disquiet

>>19230538
>10000 dudes get their groins speared how interesting
jej

>>19230538
4/10 bait, there's room for improvement, but you're on the right track anon, keep it up

>>19226353
Absolutely not. Life is too short to force myself to finish books I have no interest in. I subscribe to a 100-age page minimum. If after 100-my age pages I am not interested in continuing the book I drop it.

>>19226353
I've been filtered by I Am a Cat by Soseki, of all books

>>19226353
>finish
I force myself to BEGIN reading a book. Rarely do I ever finish.

depends on how much i respect the thing.

>>19231095
To each their own
I hate fags doing challenges on YT such as le reeeeeding 21 books in a month
Reading is supposed to be a patient mental exercise you accomplish for your own benefit, unless it is for academic reasons, but that's another topic for another thread

No. Limited time on earth, no point in reading something that isn't emotionally or intellectually challenging.

>>19232140
Naval?

>>19230535
I'm not really a Dosto-cuck, I like him and respect his as the first great literature I've read, plus the rest of my books are only considered masterpieces within the last century. I think Tolstoy and Joyce are good writers, just not very enjoyable.
Sound and Fury and For Whom were poorly written, as was Gaddis, Mailer, and Pynchon. None of those have any merit as masterpieces aside from polls within the past 100 years from academics I don't care about.
I don't see much in Proust

The rest I said were all great just long.