Gentle readers, I’m pleased to announce that for the first time in years, I finally have a chance to do nothing but read books. I’m currently in between jobs (the new one starts March 6), leaving me with free time and a chance to finally tackle all the books I’ve wanted to read but haven’t had the time for. The “to read” pile has been accruing over the past year—every now and then I’d make some headway, especially around the holidays, but never quite managed to demolish the whole stack. Now, over the next two weeks, I’m going to make Serious Progress, if not vanquish the pile entirely.
Washington Post book critic Michael Dirda wrote a column last month about conquering such literary challenges, not just making peace with the challenge of “too many books, too little time”, but also the special pleasure of having finished books that seemed too long or too hard—the literary equivalent of running a marathon. He asks:
So, members of the Reading Room, what books have you been most proud to have read? What Everests and K-2s have you attacked and conquered? How old were you? Why did you choose these particular peaks of literature or history or science? Please share your thoughts and reminiscences.
The comments are worth a read, and Dirda’s questions immediately brought back memories of how I plowed through all 1,000+ pages of Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov in 12th grade to complete some kind of summer reading requirement (We had to read a set number of pages and I thought I would be clever and pick one long book rather than several shorter ones). I remember being extremely proud that I finished it…and yet, I can’t remember for the life of me what that book was about. I can’t even remember the characters’ names—uh…Karamazov?—let alone the plot. So much for that achievement. I did improve on reading comprehension, though. In college I majored in English literature and minored in Spanish literature, so there was a LOT of reading. Plowing through both Middlemarch and Love in the Time of Cholera in Spanish in the same week was probably my proudest achievement. It’s a miracle I didn’t go blind from eyestrain.
But that was more than a decade ago. When one of my friends emailed me this weekend asking what I thought of Umberto Eco’s latest novel, I honestly told him that I hadn’t read any heavy-duty literature in a long time. These days, I have a lot less tolerance for the literary K-2s. It may be that working a media job that requires tons of reading has worn down my patience for super-long books. Or maybe I just don’t have something to prove the way I did when I was a student. These days instead of trying to knock off a single 1,000 pager, I just try to keep them at around 300-400 pages and spread them out a little more.
What about you? Any fond (or not-so-fond) memories of running a literary marathon? Any favorite ultra-long or very literary books that you thought were totally worth the effort? Please share in the comments….
I remember having to read The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden in high school in the span of about three weeks. When I finally finished, I hurled East of Eden across my room in triumph and left a dent in the wall that remains there to this day.
My senior year of college I read Anna Karenina as a hobby. I am a big fan of Tolstoy, so it was an easy read. I read a few pagers at a time, and it took me the whole year, but I am very glad that I did. I think because I took my time to savor every scene, I remember many of the plot. There are a few scenes, like when Levin saw Kitty at the staking ring in the beginning of the book, that I remember fondly. So far, that has been my longest book and I hope this summer to start War and Peace. I have tried a few times to read War and Peace, but I am unable to pass page 300 because of the complexity of so many characters. I do remember feeling completely exhilarating when I finished reading Anna Karenina. Like if I climbed a big mountain and I was at the top enjoying the great view.
I read the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy while on a ski vacation. My husband skis, but I don’t, so I was reading LOTR by the fire in the lodge. I saw the films first, and must say I liked them better, which is rare. Reading the books was a slog.
Anna Karenina for me as well. Took me 3 months. I read maybe 4 or 5 other books during that process because sometimes I could just not pick it up. But the end of that book is so amazing and cathartic, it was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life as a reader to read those final scenes.
Also during middle and high school I ended up reading the first few Harry Potter books some absurdly high number of times (like 18 times in 5 years or so). The sixth I’ve only read 3 or 4 times and the seventh only once or twice — I found it very disappointing in a number of ways.
A couple on the to-do list: Infinite Jest, for one (my boyfriend’s summer project from last year). For another, now that Terry Pratchett is (very sadly) unlikely to continue Discworld, I’d like to re-read all of them in a bunch.
@JetGirl – Definitely agree with you about LotR.
I couldn’t imagine reading Middlemarch in one week, let alone reading it and another book in the same week. How did you manage?
Surprisingly, I don’t have a lot of literary triumphs. Having previously worked in media as well, I didn’t have the patience for extracurricular reading for a long time. I was surprised when I was able to read Pillars of the Earth relatively quickly considering its size.
@Drew – That’s a great story.
I love Umberto Eco. It took me three goes to get past the first 30 pages of Foucault’s Pendulum, but once I did I couldn’t put it down and having once gotten to grips with his style he’s now one of my very favourite writers. I grab any new (fiction – I’ve got less patience with the serious semiotics stuff) book by him as soon as it comes out and I can reread them endlessly, they don’t feel like an effort any more.
I’m generally fairly up for ‘literary’ book as long as they’re not just literary for the sake of it. I like David Mitchell a lot but prefer the later, less self-consciously clever books. I’m all for literary devices and tricks as long as they’re not just showing off, which I think some of his earlier stuff comes close to.
I’ve got Anna Karenina, not opened it yet. I have stalled on the Crimson Petal and the White, but purely because it’s physically too heavy for me to hold comfortably or carry round on public transport. It’ll be my first kindle buy when I get round to it, because I was really enjoying it!
Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy are all big fat books, and sci-fi too so doubly offputting for some, but they’re cracking reads.
I love Anna Karenina! And Middlemarch! (But it took me way longer than a week to get through Middlemarch – I’m also amazed at your reading speed).
I majored in literature as well (in fact I still work on it) so I had a few reading marathons. Getting through L’Assommoir and Germinal (both Zola) in French in 4 days was a struggle. I loved both books, but they’re really thick, and I hardly moved except to eat and go to the bathroom. Maybe I should have just read the translations, but I made it a point of pride not to do that. (And doing my reading in originals was my excuse for never studying foreign language grammar the way I was supposed to.
Someday I would really love to read all of Proust. I know an academic who specialises in it and can speak about it what makes it great so eloquently that you can’t help but want to get to know it too. But right now, I just don’t have the time…
I love the Hobbit but I’m not a big fan of LOTR (or any books that have extensive descriptions of battles for that matter). I still haven’t managed to read War and Peace because I have too much trouble keeping all the characters straight in my head.
I am an extremely fast reader. I broke my leg when I was 11 and remember my mom going a little crazy trying to keep me in books the first week when I couldn’t do anything since I was still only in a splint. She must have been crazy anyway because there is no other explanation for giving your 11 year old “Gone with the Wind” and “Clan of the Cave Bear” to read in the same week but since I finished each book in less than 24 hours…
One of my favorite literary marathon memories is of 8th grade. For our segment on AFrican American literature everyone got to pick a book (which had to be approved by the teacher), read it, and then five a presentation on it. I choose “Roots” and my teacher spent several minutes repeatedly asking me if I was sure I’d be able to finish it in the time allotted (maybe 3 weeks?). That was on Friday: by Monday I had read the whole thing and the look on her face when I handed in my reading log was priceless!
PS Your stories have just reminded me – I definitely went through a stage when I was about 11 where I decided to tackle big books. Unfortunately for me, the two main ones were LOTR and Gone With the Wind, neither of which I thought was amazing. After those my enthusiasm for reading big books for the sake of them kind of died down.
First, CONGRATULATIONS on the new job!!
I adored Middlemarch. Was delighted to finish all of Jane Austen’s novels. And though it’s short, I was proud of myself for finishing Candide in French because I so often threw the book across the room and swore at Voltaire for his narcissism and hypocrisy. Each time I picked it back up just so I could finish the argument and gain the moral high-ground.
Like you, I’ve lost patience with the Grand Tomes, because there is so little time to read (even though I work in media) that it’s more important to get a flavor across the board with a number of mid-sized good books from many perspectives, styles, eras and contexts than it is to plow through one writer’s grandiose life ambition, well-written though it may be.
Like most of you, I’ve always been a really fast reader, and around the time I was 9 I started reading the biggest books I could get my little hands on. Lord of the Rings cropped up early, and at the time I really enjoyed it. (Now? Ugh, boring. The movies are WAY better.) Then I tried The Silmarillion, but my poor little brain couldn’t understand it! I was so upset; I’d NEVER encountered a book that was too hard for me before! So I was quite proud of myself when I finally managed to plow through that sucker at age 13.
In recent years I’ve had a lot of fun hunting down books that stuck with me as a child and experiencing them again as an adult. It’s like reading a completely different book! (I’m actually kind of sad that I won’t get to experience that with Harry Potter.)
Recently I checked out a doorstop of a non-fiction book called “Secrets of the Samurai” that was a dissertation on the history, evolution, and accoutrements of warrior culture in Japan. Somehow the authors managed to slip humor in without dropping the formal academic prose, which to me is pretty damn awesome. It took a shocking six weeks to read, and was worth every minute. ^_^
And congratulations on the new job AND the downtime! It’s nice when good things happen to awesome people. ^_^
I was proud for finishing the Silmarillion, though it was at a long cottage vacation with not much else to do.
I also was relieved to finish the Odyssey, which took much much longer than the Iliad or Aeneid for me because I was fuming at how poor Penelope was treated and spoken of. And considering how fantastical Odyssey’s adventures were, I found them strangely boring.
I always go for the older books/texts, because I love ancient history and would love to get through as much ancient literature as possible.
My next project is Volume 1 of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms – I’ve been playing games set in ancient China recently and that’s piqued my interest.
congratulations on the new job Becky! it’s great that you are able to have some time off in-between finishing and starting anew.
As for long books, I remember I used to steal away to the garage where there were boxes of books that did not fit in the bookcases in the house. In those boxes was the gold:
* DH Lawrence (and yes his books with swearing and sex!),
* The Scarlet Letter (not understanding some it when I was 12, I still plowed ahead),
* Herodotus’ Histories (and giggling at some of the different cultural mores that he identified were different between Greece and Egypt),
* Homer’s Odyssey and Illiad, plus Theogony (now that really opened my eyes about sex)
* plus a whole bunch of others that I can’t even remember.
I spent a whole 6 weeks of the Summer in the garage just reading whatever I could get my hands on. And maude it was great!
Dickens makes the time investment worthwhile.
Yay to “Middlemarch”! I love the HP books and reread them regularly, whereas I use LOTR as a reference for the films. Peter Jackson gets huge points from me for bringing life to a lifeless book. I read “Anna Karenina” in high school but don’t remember much about it. I want to reread it before the Kiera movie version comes out.
Two long books on my list: Murakami’s new one, “1Q84″ and Vikram Seth’s “A Suitable Boy”.
My proudest reading achievement was reading Ulysses in the 12th grade. I have re-read it a few times since, and I get more out of it each time.
I haven’t read anything substantial for quite a while. I’ve actually started reading non-fiction, memoirs, and self-helpy sorts of things. I used to be a dyed-in-the-wool fiction reader. I find I don’t have the energy to get as emotionally invested in my reading as I used to do.
I don’t think about book length very much these days. I do remember back in 3rd or 4th grade that I wanted to read the thickest book in the elementary school library. So, I checked out The Yearling by Marjorie Rawlings. It was good.
I loved Middlemarch but I read it for fun when I was in my mid-40s, not in high school or college. Same with Anna Karenina. I didn’t pick up the books as a challenge but simply as stories that looked interesting to me.
I do think there are certain books that simply don’t resonate as a teenager or young woman that you might love when you’re older. And vice versa. It’s hard to know since everyone’s experience is so different but that’s my two cents.
I’ll end by saying that I’ve started to read Ulysses twice. Both times I was dreadfully bored so I gave up. I guess that book is simply not for me, period. I think I’d need a class or book discussion before I could even get through it. I might still be bored with it but at least I might get something out of it.
@ahimsa: I think you’re *so* right about needing to read books at the right age. I read The Great Gatsby when I was 13 and thought it was dreadfully boring. Gave it another try aged 19 and thought it was amazing. The book hadn’t changed, but by the time I read it the second time, I was a lot more mature.
Completely agree with Endora and ahimsa about age being a big factor. I absolutely love Dickens, for example, but reading Great Expectations in high school was such a different experience from reading it in college. I just “got” it at 19 in a way I didn’t at 16 (and I had excellent teachers in h.s. so I don’t think that was the issue.)
A confession: I was never able to get through the LOTR books. I suspect that my dislike of them had something to do with being forced to read Fellowship of the Ring in 6th grade with an unpleasant teacher. Also, they just seemed to boy-fantasy-oriented for me. At that age I was much more interested in reading fiction with women characters, whether it was Jane Eyre or all the Jean Plaidy novels about the queens of England.
And thanks for all the good job-related wishes, y’all! I’m very excited.
I love this post.
I read all the Tolkein stuff, but I could not get through Simarillion, and I read Anna Karenina and a few of the Russians but I could not get through Crime and Punishment, and I read Jane Austen, but I could not get through Middlemarch, and I read a few Dickens novels, but I couldn’t get through that last fat one….it always ended inzzzzzzzz
Lately I fought my way through Constantine’s Sword. It’s not well written, and I’ve got some serious problems with the premise. But it was so worth it. There are some ideas in there I never would have come to by myself.
Joyce’s Ulysses! And I actually understood it better than most, even if less than many.