Books you never finished

It takes a lot to make me abandon a book, especially a non-fiction one. Admittedly, with fiction, I can get turned off pretty quick but if I adhere to reading through it, I normally make it all the way. Non-fiction is harder to lose me, but particularly boring or badly written non-fiction gets really hard to read really fast. I've actually been reading pretty much exclusively non-fiction for the last couple of years now. The last novel I read was a short, antiquated book called The Hurricane that my dad had been keeping hold of for years. I like older books, so I read it quick.

Anyways, the last books I was just completely unable to bring myself to finish were China Inc. and Hitler's American Model. The former was a 2005 book about the revolution of China's industry and social infrastructure. It started off really interesting and informative, but towards the ending third of the book the author went off on weird tangents about how in 10 year's time (2015) China would overtake the world and stuff. It was a lot of funny doomsday conjecture that, obviously, never came true. I got bored with it and gave up, seeings how the remainder of the book was just a bunch of random theories.

The latter is a newer book about how Hitler and the Nazi party took a lot of their fascist inspiration from the American government. It also started off really interesting and informative (even if the author over-frequently reminds the reader that he's not saying all Americans in the 1940s were Nazi sympathizers and that just because the Nazis took this from America doesn't mean America was a paragon of fascism, etc etc). The problem with this book, however, is that it's way too long. It's only under some 200~ pages or something like that but the entire thing could have very easily only been 80. Lots of pointless repetition and things that kind of go nowhere. This historical facts were very interesting and I learned quite a few new things from them, but between the book being needlessly drawn out and the author's attempt to dramatically prove that "Some aspects of American law were considered extreme even by the Nazis" (spoiler: it turns out that this is massively overstated and overhyped and turns out to be basically nothing), I couldn't finish it.

My most recently finished book was Hillary Clinton's What Happened. It was okay, but it's over 400 pages long and a lot of it is very boring and didn't really need to be said. I count entire chapters of the book that didn't need to be included, because it's just boring fluff factoids or retellings of campaign moments that don't really matter. I was very, very close to abandoning it (especially because the new Fire and Fury book was next on my backlog) but I didn't want to abandon another book so soon after Hitler's American Model so I sucked it up and stuck it out.

 

I kind of suspected this bit would be in a thread like this. The frustrating thing about the Thomas Covenant series is that I think it's really good fantasy. The worldbuilding through thousands of years of history is amazing, the characters are well-developed (yes, even Covenant himself, see below for an explanation of why I think so) and the themes of self-hate, futile martyrdom, the meaning of redemption, duty and corruption are very well explored, and the antagonist is one of the cleverest creations I've ever read, in the way he takes the standard Dark Lord Who's Evil Just Cause and justifies it.

But then someone brings up that scene as a reason why they hate the series.....and I also completely agree with them. I can understand utterly how people would read that scene or hear about it and think "that series isn't for me" before they get to the point where they might appreciate what the story's trying to do (or they might be put off by the first book being a fairly standard quest plot, or by Covenant's personality). But I'll try and explain the counterpoints and explain why I love the series, without telling you that you're wrong to have your views, or that you're supposed to like the book or Covenant as an individual. It got a bit long and rambling, so I'll break it down into three sections:

Covenant's character arc and how we're meant to regard him:

Spoiler

First, Covenant is technically a "reluctant hero", in that he's in total denial that the wonderful fantasy land he's travelled to is real. This is an offshoot of the self-discipline that keeps his leprosy under control. There's a scene in the second book that gives some insight into him, where he recounts a story of a fellow leper, who decided that her disease wasn't that bad and she could blithely carry on as she always had (the same opportunity the Land offers Covenant, with its miraculous healing), and she was slowly eaten away, her body crumbling because she wasn't vigilant enough. That's why he mistrusts the Land, because it represents a flight from reality that he is certain will kill him. Even if it's a coma dream he's having after getting hit by a car, he can't afford to play along.

And that necessary certainty that his surroundings are unreal is what Covenant struggles with through the first trilogy. His scepticism is steadily eroded by the things he witnesses and the growing realisation that if this is a dream, it's the most convincing one he's ever had. And he's forced to accept that if this is real, then the things he's done (most notably, raping Lena) happened to real people. It's not the equivalent of that time you or I fired the portable nuke into a settlement during a Fallout game because we were bored and eh, they weren't real people we atomised.

But even if there's a reason for his attitude, that doesn't answer the question of--why would a miserable jerk like this guy be the Chosen One? What on earth does he have that the Land could need? I think this is another thing that isn't very clear in book one, but makes a lot more sense in book two, when we meet Troy and Elena. They're much more relatable and likable fantasy heroes--the brave warrior and general summoned from our world in a time of need, and the beautiful and kind prodigy sorceress. Why weren't these guys the heroes?

Because of Lord Foul. One of the things in the series that I consider genius is how Foul works. From the ancient history, where Lord Kevin wrecks the Land himself in an extremity of despair rather than watch it be corrupted, every major accomplishment Foul ever makes comes from good and noble people who make terrible choices in the grip of self-hate and fear--the armies and monsters are just a distraction and a way to force these bad choices. And both Troy and Elena follow the same pattern, because they don't realise their hidden weaknesses. When Troy's miraculous healing is reversed and he loses his sight again, or when Elena grows up with a creeping knowledge that her father wasn't as great as she's been told he is, that despair and suppressed hate leads to them both unwittingly advancing Foul's agenda. This isn't "evil will win because good is dumb", it's that the natives of the Land don't grasp how Foul really works.

Covenant's scepticism is what makes him able to resist this corruption. Victory comes for him, at least in the first trilogy, when he's able to tread a path between regarding the Land as unreal and unimportant, and being so devoted to it that he'd commit atrocities for the "greater good". And though Covenant's anger and bitterness is necessary, it's also necessary that the Land and its inhabitants be good and genuinely likable, and worth fighting for, even if Covenant cannot fully be a part of their world because of what he is and what he's done. This theme is articulated in the fourth book, that only those who have experienced evil from either side can effectively understand and fight evil.

Elena, and her relationship with Covenant:

Spoiler

That's a pretty inaccurate summary above. Their relationship is much more subtle, and uncomfortable. Elena has twigged something is wrong with the circumstances of her birth, even if she doesn't know what exactly, and she regards her father with a deep ambivalence that even she's not completely aware of. Later on, Covenant sums it up as "you still hate me, and you don't even realise it". Just how deep the cracks run only becomes apparent when she gives in to hubris and breaks the laws of the universe at the end of the second book. And the consequences of that act are still cascading through the world thousands of years later.

Lena, and what happens to her:

Spoiler

He rapes her, and it's horrible. There are no excuses, and it makes him a horrible person, who deserves punishment. But, importantly, both the story and Covenant himself agree with this.

A lot of the time, a protagonist who committed rape would be excused somehow, in ways that would have varying degrees of credibility. It's a harsh world and that's the way things are, he was intoxicated, things just got a bit out of hand and he thought she was just putting up a playful pretence of maidenly resistance. Or perhaps the victim forgives him, or he experiences suffering of his own that the story considers equal to that of his victim. You'd have a tougher time getting modern audiences to accept that, but there are quite a few examples in older works. And Covenant could make excuses, or the book could make excuses for him. There are even some waiting ready-made--he didn't believe Lena was a real person, and his body had been abruptly re-awakened to full health after years of leprosy-induced numbness.

But Covenant gets no excuses. Nobody forgives him, because nobody else (even Lena herself) can fully admit he's done something wrong, at least not enough to openly accuse him--after all, this man is the Chosen One, right? But Covenant knows what he did, and much as he might tell himself "she wasn't a real person", the realisation starts creeping up on him, at latest from the point where he commands the enchanted horses to go to Lena as a clumsy attempt at recompense. He's not spared any of the consequences--he sees how her origin has messed up his daughter and eventually drives her to a spectacular act of folly. He sees how Lena's mind has snapped, and she can't even accept that he raped her, and the damage he's done to her other family members and even the creatures he asked to console her. The universe and story goes out of its way to let Covenant know just how much damage he's done, and that he can't undo it.

Even his moment of "I gotta snap out of this guilt." in the third book doesn't mark a point where he forgives himself or gets forgiven (the very idea is mocked by another character shortly afterwards), it's a point where he realises that he can't undo what happened and wallowing in self-hate or self-destructing isn't helping anyone, all he can do is try to save what's left and try to avoid ever repeating such a terrible act of corruption. Nor does this mark a point where things get better for him or he's "paid his debt"--there's a lot more suffering in store, the consequences of the rape continue to ripple through history and even a heroic martyrdom later on doesn't free him from his responsibilities. Even when other characters forgive him or say he's a different person now, Covenant never forgets or tries to make excuses. He accepts that he deserves judgement, but also that he must be the one to provide it and that futile self-flagellation would only be a way of dodging his remaining responsibilities.

His life goes on, he has happy episodes between a host of torments, and a fairly happy ending, including becoming married to another woman. I can certainly understand people thinking that nothing short of a humiliating karmic death would be what he deserves, and I'm not going to tell them they're wrong. But I hope I've explained why I think it's more complicated than "rapist hero". If the idea of a man who commits rape being put in any sort of vaguely heroic role is unacceptable, that's fair enough, but I hope I've at least articulated why that's not the only possible reading of the series.

 

Nope. Not my genre, but can't stand his writing style. I do own On Writing, though. (Got it for free from a pile of garage sale stuff that didn't sell. The irony makes me smile.)

A few I couldn't get through:

Lord of the Rings, et al.
Catcher in the Rye
Anna Kerinina (sp? the title plays havoc with my dyslexia) --I didn't hate it, but it was a slow read for me due to similarities with some of the characters' names. I'm only good for one "Now who are you again?" per book. Maybe I'll go back to it when I'm more patient.
Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath God please let mine be more interesting / entertaining.
Don Felder's autobiography (Guy from the Eagles) I finished it, but I was bored by it and just wanted him to stop whining.

 

I actually found Don Felder's autobiography at the library one time and I was like "oh cool, this is some guy in The Eagles apparently". I checked it out and while I managed to finish it, all it did was make Don Felder and, yeah, everyone who wasn't Joe Walsh, look like assholes. It was also way too long.

I went on Amazon.com to see what other people thought of the book and I got incredibly confused because for some reason, Amazon displays a bunch of reviews on Don Felder's book that are clearly not reviews for his book, but some novel named "Heaven and Hell" that people either mistakenly leave on the Felder book or that Amazon has for some reason merged into the Felder book. It's pretty funny to try reading the reviews, seeing people complain about The Eagle's cocaine use and Felder's whining intercut with reviews about characters dying and moving to Wyoming.

 

Yep. Walsh let 'em borrow his Cool Card.

 

I started Conscience of a Conservative by Jeff Flake, the senator from AZ and ended up putting it down midway thought and haven't gone back yet. His ideals are there but lord have mercy, the whole thing came across so naive. Lots of whining and missing the good ol days.

 

I started reading this series by Sherrlyn Kenyan, I think that's how you spelled her name. Her first book was About a prince who didn't know he was one get close to this princess. It had space battles the whole shebang. Then I read the second book, and I started to see how repetitive some of these plot points were. Boy meets girl, they don't get along, something brings them together and somehow midway through the book they fuck. Ending with a big battle.

Then I realized she was a formulaic writer and that was what killed it.

 

Anything written by Tolkien like The Hobbit or Lord of the rings. Just found them boring, which causes an uproar from fans. I did try to read them though.

Stephen Kings, It. Nope, can't do it, I fell asleep with the book in hands on the train and missed my stop.

Orwells 1984 too. I thought Animal farm was okay, but 1984 wasn't for me.

 

Despite my love for detective fiction, I never technically read every page of Conan Arthur Doyle's A Study in Scarlet. I kind of skimmed over the tangential backstory for the culprit; I wasn't sure what exactly, but just something about the whole presentation of the culprit and their history in A Study in Scarlet, for lack of a better way to put it, kind of ticked me off.

I never finished And Then There Were None, either. Trying to create an amalgamation of puzzle mysteries and mystery thrillers, I felt totally unsatisfied in both regards and found little to no incentive to finish it. I could never recommend it over Miss Marple or Hercule J. Poirot and if one had somehow managed to read every Agatha Christie novel before her proclaimed masterpiece And Then There Were None and wanted to read one more, I'd probably sooner recommend anything by Mary Roberts Rinehart, the "American Agatha Christie", than And Then There Were None.

 

Slightly OT, but I'm a fan of Hercule Poirot, too. It's nice to see your post, because I'm often accused of liking dated material. But I love the vivid characterizations and descriptions that bring the reader into the setting. Truth be told, I'm not even into Christie's books for the genre. I'm into them for the settings and characters. Same goes for Raymond Chandler. Their stories could be about anything and I'd still want to read them, and even though I write a different genre, that's the kind of vividness I'm trying to achieve when I write.

 

Rather hard to find good detective fiction that isn't dated. Most modern detective fiction seems to be police procedurals, which I find comparatively less enjoyment from.

Admittedly, I just love Christie books for their being detective fiction. I love and want to write contemporary Golden Age-esque detective fiction. But I agree they utilize a lot of universal literary techniques and the characterization is often marvelous and believable.