Stuck in a Book - Guest Post - David Carr

Yesterday I received my monthly newsletter from Novelist: RA News in which the editor David Carr eloquently mused about how we can sometimes find ourselves bogged down when reading an excellent book. I've often wondered why sometimes a book just doesn't "click" with me the first time, and yet I can return to it at another time and find it myself absolutely absorbed. This actually happened to me earlier this year. The first time I read Olive Kitteridge (long before it won the Pulitzer) I just could not like this book or this character. I forced myself to read it because it was set in Maine, and because I just kept feeling I should like it. Then about 5 months later, I read it again, this time with an online book group, and I saw it in a whole different light.

The book David refers to "Cutting with Stone" was highly recommended by a good friend, but I really struggled with it. I have resolved to give it another try though so I can see if it too is one of those that simply must be read at the "right time."

So I asked David, and he has graciously consented, for permission to reprint his opening article from the October issue of RA News: Stuck in a Book. If your library is lucky enough to have a subscription to the Novelist database, you too may be able to subscribe to this delightful newsletter and get the benefits of David's monthly musings.
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Stuck in a Book 

by David Carr, editor, RA News from Novelist

Earlier this year I reviewed a book I loved: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. In my review, I said that its excellence would make it difficult for me to find another book of similar magnitude. I wonder if that is one reason why I now find myself stuck in a fine police novel about postwar Britain, Flesh Wounds by John Lawton. I am enjoying it, and I'll read other books in this series; but I feel that it will never end. It seems to be adding new pages as I read. Meanwhile I am eyeing, almost apologetically, other books waiting for me: "Sorry, Philip Roth, Tana French, William Trevor, Joan Silber, this is just taking a little longer than I had expected." So my pleasure is diminished and I am not giving Mr. Lawton my best attention while it feels as if my other (better, smarter?) books wait patiently. It is their unrealized reader who is impatient.

So many conditions have to align properly when we read, I think. We need true reading time, not just a stolen few minutes before sleep. We need a book that moves us forward with complexity and engagement, not density and confusion. This means fictional lives with human characteristics and consequential presence in our imaginations. And we need to be able to finish the book in a reasonable span of time. The alignment of all these things -- and there are many more, I believe -- is often out of our hands. Ideal conditions are episodic and temporary, like a patch of great weather.

This has become more important to me as I begin to think seriously about setting some clear reading plans. I have classics, crime novels, westerns, Victorian fiction, novels of the First World War, countless essays, nonfiction works, all in my "to be read before death" lists. I don't want to cheat myself of Middlemarch or At Swim-Two-Birds or What is the What because I made an easy choice that I seem unable to finish up. (Listen to me: I'm complaining when I read, complaining when I don't read. Fickle, feckless.) In this case, what has happened to me is that I picked this book up instead of another, started reading and felt the casual commitment turn into a reluctant obligation, even as I read other nonfiction books and professional articles for my classes.

My feelings as a reader are mixed. I need to read something fresh, but -- you probably know the story -- I'm more than halfway done, it's really a pretty interesting narrative and the characters and their behaviors fit my tastes. I'm just not enchanted. I wish I were reading more happily, less perfunctorily, and faster. Those great books -- they make it harder for the "merely" good ones.

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So fellow readers what do you think?  Do find yourself reading a book to completion because you feel like you've invested time in it already?  Do you have criteria you use to decide when to abandon a book? When to put it aside to return to later? How often do you put a book down?

Again, many thanks to David Carr for permission to reprint his thoughts.

Friday Favorites from the past: Chesapeake

Time for another Favorite Reads the meme started by Alyce at At Home with Books. We decided this week to take advantage of good health and slashed prices and signed up to take a cruise through the Mediterranean in late August. As I was browsing through my travel bookshelf, I came upon a collection by James Michener, who was always a favorite. We own over 20 of his books, a mere sip of the 133 he wrote in his lifetime. I think my favorite is Chesapeake. I grew up on the Bay, and found this a fascinating historical and environmental study of one of the most important water resources in the nation. (Can you say crab? shrimp? oysters, bluefish?) Going back to the time of native Americans living on the islands and near the marshes, he then traces the various colonies formed in the Tidewater and proceeds through the years up to 1976. As with everything Michener does, it is well researched, and historically factual. He uses the technique of introducing fictional families in a time period and then following them and their descendants through the years. It's been eons since I read the book, but I still remember the impact it had on me learning about what we now call an eco-system, and the various ethnic groups that contributed to the richness of my home state, Maryland. I wish he'd written one about Maine. I suspect it would still be a good read and have put it on my "let's read it again" pile. I highly recommend his work...there is a timelessness about it, and a richness that makes learning history not only easy, but enjoyable.

A morning at the Dentist

Like most people, going to the dentist is not normally at the top of my "fun things to do" list. But last week, I discovered my dentist is a reader. So is his chairside assistant. As I was in the chair in the"open wide" position with tons of tubes, clamps, cotton rolls and lord only knows what else jamming my mouth, we somehow got into a terrific discussion of books, libraries, and TV adaptations. It's amazing how much communicating you can still do when your tongue is numb and you're not really allowed to speak. The old Roman "thumbs up/down" works really well. We did all agree on several books, and each of us agreed (I think) to go look up a book suggested by one of the others. I just wish I could remember what they were. The novacaine somehow migrated to my brain cells. The dental assistant told me about the reading club she belonged to and asked for suggestions for the next read...it was her turn to choose. I suggested Monica Wood's Any Bitter Thing , Kate Jacobs Friday Night Knitting Club, Geraldine Brooks People of the Book, and Sue Waters Water for Elephants. Turns out this last was their current read. Then we had a hilarious but fun discussion of Alexander McCall Smith's various series, and all agreed that the 1st Ladies' Detective Agency was definitely the best. They were thrilled to find out that HBO has made a TV series of these wonderful stories. Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and the whole loveable cast is there, faithfully portrayed, and delighting us as much as the books. The show is running every Sunday nite on HBO...check it out. And in the meantime, get your hand signals and your book list ready before you head to the dentist next time. Ask them to write down their recommendations. They'll be good ones.