# What Book Can't You "Get Through"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 5, 2010, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-cant-you-get-through/542051 "2010-06-05T13:04:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-cant-you-get-through/542051/81 "2010-06-07T14:19:57Z")
The key to _Moby Dick_ is to read every other chapter - these contain the actual story. The chapters in between are all about whaling: how to be a good whaler, how to secure the whale, what to do with blubber, and memorably, how to squick through the “sperm” of the sperm whale. Since I’m really not interested in ever becoming a whaler, I skimmed these, but they’re best just skipped. The story chapters are really quite good. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-cant-you-get-through/542051/82 "2010-06-07T14:25:33Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > I picked up _The Satanic Diaries_ (as I recall, this was about three weeks BEFORE the fatwa was issued), and didn’t get past the first couple of dozen pages. You sure you made it through the title? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-cant-you-get-through/542051/83 "2010-06-07T17:03:15Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > “The Sea Wolf” by Jack London was a revelation, a joy. Before that, I thought he only wrote about dogs (the titular Sea Wolf is a ship). Nitpick: the titular Sea Wolf is the captain, Wolf Larsen. Heh heh. You said “titular.” > [@](#): > > I did not get more than 25 pages into “Black House”, the sequel to “The Talisman”. I found the first book a bit tough to get through as well: the story grabbed me, but the style made it a struggle. The first hundred or so pages are slow going, before the story really gets started, but I thought it was ultimately worth it. YMMV, and it’s _not_ the same kind of story as _The Talisman_. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-cant-you-get-through/542051/84 "2010-06-07T17:15:07Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I haven’t even started it yet, but I’ve had the sequel to “A Canticle For Liebowitz” (“Wild Horse Woman”) for years now without even cracking the cover. I didn’t like Canticle, and I can’t be bothered to read the sequel. Oh, ugh. I tried to get through “Canticle” (and even in audiobook–I can get through almost anything in audiobook form) and I couldn’t do it. And I _like_ postapocalyptic fiction. Way too long and wordy for me. Didn’t like LeGuin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness,” either. Tried to read it in high school and all I can remember about it now, many years later, is how stupefyingly boring I found it. ---
**Author:** ![Rafe\_Hollister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/fbc32d/32.png) [@Rafe\_Hollister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rafe_Hollister)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-cant-you-get-through/542051/85 "2010-06-07T18:18:25Z")
Yet another vote for _Ulysses_. As far as Hemingway–I never fail to finish one of his novels quite quickly. I’ve read _The Old Man and the Sea_ probably 4 times, usually completing it in 3 or 4 hours. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-cant-you-get-through/542051/86 "2010-06-07T18:21:02Z")
> [@cwthree](#): > > I’ve never been able to get past the first chapter or so of _The Silmarillion_. Same with me. I’ve read the Lord of the Rings probably three times through, but I can’t make any headway with the Silmarillion. ---
**Author:** ![Arrendajo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arrendajo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrendajo)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-cant-you-get-through/542051/87 "2010-06-07T18:41:32Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > I’m sure I’m going to get hate for this but I can’t finish any of The Lord of the Ring books. I think they’re incredibly boring. This is coming from a guy who loves to read. Yes, AClockworkMelon. I tried to read them back in my stoner youth days when all my pals were reading them and telling me how terrific they were. Boring. Boring boring boring. Boring, too. Now I’m a children’s librarian and I get parents who want copies of TLOTR to read to their children. Like 6 year olds. I ask them WHY? WHY? WHY WOULD YOU DELIBERATELY SUBJECT YOUR CHILDREN TO THAT? THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF GREAT CHILDREN’S BOOKS AND YOU WANT TO READ YOUR CHILDREN **THAT**? Yes, parents who want to read TLOTR to their little kids make me type in all caps. ---
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-cant-you-get-through/542051/88 "2010-06-07T19:09:24Z")
_The Hobbit._ When I was in sixth grade, I checked this book out from the library. Everything was going fine, hobbit and dwarves leave home to slay the dragon, have many long-winded adventures, etc. up until the point that they get to the dragon’s lair and some guy we met just three pages before KILLS THE DRAGON! All that, and some random character just pops out of nowhere and fulfills the main character’s quest? Whah?! I stopped reading right there. Many years later I am in college. I’ve read the Lord of the Rings trilogy and found it pretty good (although this may have had something to do with living in Spain at the time and having limited access to English language books). I decide that I’ll give _The Hobbit_ another try. Unfortunately, my memory of the plot had faded over the years, and when I got to THAT PART, it all came flooding back to me. So I stopped reading _The Hobbit_ at the same place, ten years later. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-cant-you-get-through/542051/89 "2010-06-07T23:47:41Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Morgyn: > > It’s not a re-write. It’s (intended as) a continuation. And it’s terrible. I haven’t been able to read much of it either.\ I finished it. You know that magic that Douglas Adams had, to make such a bizarre, weird story so entertaining? Well, the new guy doesn’t have it. > [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Oh! And Daisy Miller, Turn of the Screw, or anything else ever written by Henry James. I would pay good money to sock Mr. James in the balls. > > Well, if he was alive, that is. Hardly seems worth it\* now\*… Give him a shot for me, too. We studied “The Turn of the Screw” at one point (high school? university?), and it was just so stupid. I don’t recall what happened, but I do recall not being even a little bit entertained by the story (or really knowing what was going on). ---
**Author:** ![Lethal\_Babydoll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3be4f8/32.png) [@Lethal\_Babydoll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lethal_Babydoll)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-cant-you-get-through/542051/90 "2010-06-08T00:01:28Z")
Just the other day at the library I stood staring at a copy of **A Deepness in the Sky** , thinking, “I should give that a fourth shot.” I like the parts I read the first 3 times, but can’t remember why i never finished it. Each time I got to the part where the spider things were coming out of hibernation, but then i stopped. Something at that point trips me up and i put the book down and pretty soon have to return it. Same for **System of the World** , which I started and had to take back twice already, but wish i could finish. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-cant-you-get-through/542051/91 "2010-06-08T00:45:24Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Nitpick: the titular Sea Wolf is the captain, Wolf Larsen. > > Heh heh. You said “titular.” Thanks for the correction - a not inconsiderable point to get wrong. The schooner’s name was the _Ghost_. I had to look it up, as I hadn’t read it in years. My favorite Venetian painter is Titian. /know your audience [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-cant-you-get-through/542051.md?page=4)