# What books have you started but never finished?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 30, 2008, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288 "2008-10-30T18:29:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2008, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/61 "2008-10-31T15:37:44Z")
> [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](#):
>
> The Count of Monte Christo, after over 700 pages I gave up caring what happened to Edmond.
Oh, yeah, I couldn’t do it either.
---
### Author:  [@cormac262](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cormac262)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2008, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/62 "2008-10-31T15:46:02Z")
> [@grimpixie](#):
>
> \*[Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godel_Escher_Bach) \* is an intriguing, stimulating and challenging masterpiece, and yet I get half to two-thirds of the way through and my brain simply cannot cope anymore and implodes.
> Grim
I received no less than 3 copies of “Godel, Escher, Bach” so I figured they must really think I’ll like this. I had the same experience…twice, about the 2/3 point.
More recently, I started “Guns, Germs, and Steel” (hmm, maybe it has something to do with the format of the title ? 😉 and thought the points he was making were interesting, but the “proofs” - all the evidence and how it was presented - were excruciating. I didn’t make it halfway.
---
### Author:  [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2008, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/63 "2008-10-31T15:54:39Z")
_Moby-Dick_. I start reading it, then I realize I really want some clam chowder. End of story.
---
### Author:  [@Precambrianmollusc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Precambrianmollusc)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2008, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/64 "2008-10-31T17:46:01Z")
Another Gravity’s Rainbow failure here
Also The Pope’s Rhinoceros by Lawrence Norfolk
The writing sucks you in, but eventually a little bell at the back of the head starts ringing and thoughts arise along the lines of ‘where are we going with this?’ . No answers are forthcoming and interest wanes.
Perhaps I should stick with reruns of The Clangers, now available on DVD.
---
### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2008, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/65 "2008-10-31T18:07:21Z")
**The Worm Ouroboros** by E. R. Eddison is the one that always stands out in my mind. I must have got a couple chapters in on at least a half dozen occasions in my teens, only to falter then abandon it.
---
### Author:  [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2008, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/66 "2008-10-31T18:14:33Z")
> [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](#):
>
> I’ve not finished a lot of books as I’ve gotten older, when I was younger I was much more stubborn about finishing them. Also there was no Internet and we didn’t have cable TV so I had time on my hands. But even so one book I just couldn’t bring myself to finish back then was _Great Expectations_. It was even required for a class and I just couldn’t do it.
>
> I read roughly the first half, then the Cliff Notes AND the Monarch Notes so I could answer exam questions, and just went with that.
_Great Expectations_ was required in high school & a British Novels course in college. Cliff notes worked for me! And the professor mostly wanted to hear what he’d said about it. (I read the others–_Vanity Fair_ was great & I liked _The Magus_–even though Fowles came out with another edition later & admitted he’d just dumped in some stuff that sounded good.)
_The Silmarillion_ & _Gravity’s Rainbow_? No problem! I got through _Catcher in the Rye_ because I read fast & it’s not that long. Afterwards, though, I wondered what was so great about it.
Got bogged down in Volume II of _The Baroque Cycle_; will probably start again from page 1 (of that Volume.) Things do get dull waiting for Jack Shaftoe (played by Johnny Depp) to appear again.
Also got bogged down in one of the Gabaldon books–don’t think I’ll be returning to that particular bog…
---
### Author:  [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2008, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/67 "2008-10-31T21:30:27Z")
I’ve read the Hobbit dozens of times but haven’t managed to get more than halfway through FOTR.
For some reason I haven’t been able to get all the way through Good Omens yet.
---
### Author:  [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2008, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/68 "2008-10-31T21:45:44Z")
The Idiot - tried several times, once got about 2/3 of the way through…then just…didn’t finish.
Vineland - didn’t hold my interest, but I’m planning on trying again.
Soul Mountain - got about 1/2way through and just kind of stopped.
I have also gotten two pages or less into: The Last of the Mohicans, Song of Solomon, and The Difference Engine. The first was like trying to read a foreign language, and the other two I just changed my mind about what I wanted to read next.
---
### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2008, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/69 "2008-10-31T21:51:37Z")
“Lisey’s Story.” Smuck, smuck, smuck.
---
### Author:  [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2008, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/70 "2008-10-31T22:03:29Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> “Lisey’s Story.” Smuck, smuck, smuck.
😃 I forgot about that one.
Also forgot about _Little, Big_, and that makes me feel guilty because the book was a gift, and it’s a really nice edition. I’ve tried twice and it puts me to sleep every time.
---
### Author:  [@History\_Geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/History_Geek)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2008, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/71 "2008-10-31T22:37:32Z")
Never made it through any Tolkien beyond _Fellowship of the Ring_. Couldn’t stand the writing, no matter how good the story was. Same goes for H.P. Lovecraft. Terrible writers.
Just put down _Catch 22_ recently. I stopped giving a damn about any of the characters and got fed up with the overblown wackiness of all of them. Plus the anachronisms made me grind my teeth a few times.
Never made it more than a few pages into anything by Ayn Rand either.
I note that a lot of the “put down” Heinleins are the same. For those folks I would recommend trying some of his shorter books like _Citizen of the Galaxy_ or _Time For the Stars_. Less of the social weirdness, more good science fiction.
---
### Author:  [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2008, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/72 "2008-10-31T22:46:23Z")
I’m 400 pages into _War and Peace_, its was going pretty good, I just don’t have time.
---
### Author:  [@vison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vison)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2008, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/73 "2008-11-01T00:08:36Z")
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Too twee by half.
Not too many others as I have a sort of rule if I start it, I finish it. I avoid trouble by re-reading many old favourites.
I read James Joyce’s _Ulysses_ twice because the first time I thought, “Jeez, that was pretty boring and awful, I must have missed something” so I read it again and it was still boring and awful. Likewise _War and Peace_. Can’t understand what all the fuss is about.
I also, I am ashamed to admit, read \*The Bridges of Madison County \*twice. Why? Well, it was such a huge hit and I thought, well, there must be something to it. And guess what? There wasn’t. 🤮
The only other book I ever read that was as bad as The Bridges of Madison County was _The Horse Whisperer_. The Horse Whisperer was so unremittingly awful, so dreckily ghastly, so puerile and inane, so completely dreadful, that I think the man who wrote it, along with the people who published it, should be make to personally, on their knees in a sleet storm, be required to reforest the area where the trees grew that made the paper that pile of crap was printed on.
---
### Author:  [@mambocrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mambocrow)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2008, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/74 "2008-11-01T04:13:51Z")
The latest book I gave up on two weeks ago was by Heinlein. “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls”. The opening two chapters of cutesy repartee by the protagonist and his love interest were too much for me. I don’t care if he is one of the four greatest SF writers of all time, I just don’t have the patience anymore to get through that to get to the story. I might not ever pick up another one of his.
---
### Author:  [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2008, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/75 "2008-11-01T07:10:13Z")
Ah yes, and Dune.
However, I did manage to get through all ten books in Hubbard’s Mission Earth dekology in one summer and even enjoyed it.
---
### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2008, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/76 "2008-11-01T08:14:45Z")
Another vote for _Moby-Dick_. Ballsachingly dull, and I love sea stories. _A Tale Of Two Cities_ started too slow, so I’ve no idea whether it picks up. And _The Executioner’s Song_ had me tossing the book aside about halfway wishing they’d get on and shoot him, already.
---
### Author:  [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2008, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/77 "2008-11-01T09:18:03Z")
I second **Swann’s Way**. I’m on my second attempt at it. There’s nothing bad about the writing except that it lacks any kind of forward momentum. It’s as if it’s all a sort of “remembrance.”
---
### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2008, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/78 "2008-11-01T14:38:18Z")
> [@cher3](#):
>
> _A Confederacy of Dunces_ most recently. I know it’s a favorite of a lot of people around here, and I don’t know what I was expecting, but I just wasn’t enjoying the brand of humor.
Same here. Half way thru, not even a smile, chucked it.
Last night I quit reading _Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery_. It was dull, and even though I live in Minnesota, the local references did not make up for the fact that the mystery wasn’t interesting and the style is nothing like Doyle. Forget it.
The other recent one is _Brideshead Revisited_, although I am not sure why. It was fine, I just have not gone back to it.
---
### Author:  [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2008, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/79 "2008-11-01T23:09:43Z")
> [@mambocrow](#):
>
> The latest book I gave up on two weeks ago was by Heinlein. “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls”. The opening two chapters of cutesy repartee by the protagonist and his love interest were too much for me. I don’t care if he is one of the four greatest SF writers of all time, I just don’t have the patience anymore to get through that to get to the story. I might not ever pick up another one of his.
I think I’ve given up on Heinlein for good, and one of the reasons is his dialogue. I can’t stand it. No one in real life talks like that. Which is odd, because dialogue is one of the things he’s praised for.
> [@Malacandra](#):
>
> _A Tale Of Two Cities_ started too slow, so I’ve no idea whether it picks up.
I’d recommend sticking it out with _A Tale Of Two Cities._ I can’t recall distinctly whether I found the beginning slow, but the story does become quite gripping, enough that I found myself staying up late to finish it. One of my favorite novels.
---
### Author:  [@bytheway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bytheway)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2008, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288/80 "2008-11-01T23:31:33Z")
The Old Man and the Sea. Both my Mom and I could not get through it, despite its relatively short length.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288.md?page=3)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-you-started-but-never-finished/470288.md?page=5)