Reading to the end
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- August
- 2
For reasons I can’t fully explain, during my vacation I plowed through more than 800 pages of John Irving’s “Until I Find You”—even though the first 200 or so pages didn’t really didn’t intrigue me. In the end, I liked the book, but the process of reaching to THE END got me thinking about reading habits and who finishes what.
I am not usually a compulsive person. Sometimes I don’t finish things I’ve started, i.e. half completed knitting projects and partially planted landscaping designs are still begging for attention.
Reading, though, is different for me. I generally am the type of reader who likes to read to the end. I go through spurts where I like to read an author’s work in chronological order. You see, I really try to give a writer a chance. I want to understand their development as much as I like to take in a good story. So while I sometimes put down a book I am not enjoying, this is rare. My nightside table is overflowing because I don’t want to admit I am giving up on a book.
Consistency aside, I encouraged my sons to read for fun and put down a book if they really couldn’t stand it— except school assignments.
So, I feel I really accomplished that I stuck with this hefty Irving book to the end. The pay-off was I got a really good read. Now I can’t get that main character, Jack Burns, out of my mind. How much of him is really John Irving and what do I do with all this new knowledge about tatoo art?
Do you always finish reading a book you start? Or do you give it a reasonable time limit and agree to set it aside if it doesn’t grab your interest?
This entry was posted
on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 1:32 pm by Barbara Nackman.
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Yikes! I’ve been meaning to get around to “Until I Find You” for a while now. But the first 200 pages are a slog?
Is it really worth it? Where would you rank this book on the spectrum of JI’s other books? Personally, I thought the last one, “The Fourth Hand,” was barely worth the trouble—and that was just a relatively breezy 300 or so pages, not this massive 800-page opus.
I usually read an entire book no matter how hard a read. I do have one book where i have one chpter left but have yet to read it. It was that poor of a read. But i will find the time and finish it somehow.
I didn’t read it, but listened to it as a book on tape, unabridged. I thought it had its moments and Burns was a well-developed character. I especially liked the last third of the book.