I’ve got enough unread books in my apartment to supply me for a year off of nothing but reading. At the same time, I’m more conscious of death’s approach than I used to be, and tend not to stick with a book if I’m just not getting into it. Didn’t get past the first hundred pages of Cryptonomicon, and I know I’ll never re-read some of the lengthy works I used to plow through in my teens.
Let’s hear a defense of The Name of the Rose just for doubting Thomases like me. I have a smattering of an acquaintance with Latin.
(I have seen the movie, so I do know the story.)
I just think it’s a very rich and erudite piece of work. I like the historical accuracy and the depth of detail about the inquisition. I also like the disquistions and dialogue dealing with thelogical debates of he time, and particularly like Eco’s understated satirization of how seriously people took some of the most trvial and pedantic points of theology (like whether Jesus ever laughed).
I also think it just works well as a detective story. It’s dark, it’s fair with the clues, it has a satisfying resolution and it has an engaging protaganist – a monk who (sometimes to his own risk) dares to apply principles of scientific method and deduction during an era of great superstition.
Eco also manages to be critical of the Church and of the Inquistion without condemning Christianity or Christian faith in general. The hero remains a sincere and reverent monk throughout. Much of the book really constitutes a critical comparison of substantive faith with rigid dogma and joyless religionism.
It’s book that manages to be intellectual and entertaining at the same time. Maybe it’s somewhat personal for me because it contains elements that appeal to me (history. the candle-in-the-darkness theme of an empiricist during the dark ages, Latin), but the whole thing just suits my tastes to a tee. Umberto Eco would make a great Doper.
What Dio said. I am not erudite enough to be able to appreciate the Latin, but I still loved the book (and Foucalt’s Pendulum, too).
Sometimes, with Eco, you just have to say, “OK, they said some stuff I didn’t understand – now, let’s get on with the story.”
And, to speak to the OP, I give up on books way earlier than I did when I was younger. Didn’t make it too far into The Da Vinci Code. Tried to read Michael Crichton’s Next, but gave up on it, although perhaps I should have stuck it out on that one.
RR
Thanks, Diogenes; I appreciate your evaluation. I myself possess some of the same interests. Maybe I have more patience than I did 20 years which I believe is the last time I tried.
I’m more likely to put a book aside these days if I’m not enjoying it.
However, if I HATE it, sometimes that spurs me on to finish it, because I want to be able to give rabid scathing reviews to everyone I know, and I really can’t do that if I haven’t read the entire book. It’s possible that something could happen toward the end that would change the way I felt about it. I get a perverse enjoyment out of this.
When I was young I would fight though the entire book convinced it could and hopefully would get better. Few did.
As I have aged, I have learned that, yes, you give a book a chance, but not so many that it is painful picking up the thing dreading what the next page will bring.
These days a book gets 50 pages. If I’m not in love by 50 pages, I’m on to the next thing. Too many books, daylight’s burning, not getting any younger, and so on.
i sometimes give books two or three tries.
now that i send books to the military, i ask myself: “will i get through this?” if the answer is no, off the book goes. there is someone out there thousands of miles away from a bookstore that needs, truely needs something, anything to read. perhaps they will get through guns, germs, and steel.
I think I am less likely to give up on a book now than in my younger days. I do sometimes put a book aside for a time and go back to it later.
But I rarely give up on books unless they are truly horrible or incomprehensible. I have given up on authors though, even in mid-series.
For example, at some point I realized EVERY SINGLE Dean Koontz book has the exact same formulatic plotline, and vowed to never read another of them.
Stephen King, IMHO, has been on a steady downhill slide since IT, which I think was the last really scary book he wrote. Never actually gave up on anything mid-book, but came close with Needful Things, which was just too much useless buildup and not enough payoff.
I actually read Terry Brooks Shanara series before LOTR, and when I did get into Tolkien I realized Shanara was such a shameless rip-off that I couldn’t go back to it.
Terry Goodkinds Sword of Truth series became much less enjoyable after the first book or two, and I never purchased or read any of them after book 3 or 4. My friend and I had a joke that Terry was building a house with the books (which were pretty thick), and actually wanted his books returned from the publisher unsold so he could finish his house…
Only book I remember buying and then giving up on recently was Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. I really liked Farenheit 451, and figured TMC’s been around such a long time, it’s gotta be worth reading. Nope. Sorry, but I don’t for the life of me understand why this book is considered such a classic.
I made it through Guns, Germs, and Steel but it took me three runs to do do it. I’d read about a third, put it aside and read another book or two, and so on until it was done. Surely I’m not the only one who’s managed to do so.
i gave it one go. then got an email of special requests for non fiction/military/history. i sent it off. i figure if i want to give it another go i can easily get a copy.
I have a hard time with non-fiction (although I did like most of The Professor and the Madman). Most notably, I don’t think I got past page one with two books: Skinny Bitch, and Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole.
Susan