how long, sweet jesus
i spent the summer i was 14 trying to read the the grapes of wrath. i'd get to page 300 and then realize i had already read it. this went on for several years until finally, during senior year, i got to the end and felt something other than boredom, a little titillation (ha ha), some emotional return on the 800+ pages i had stuck it out. i figured out early on what the book was about and how it was going to go down, so the little bit at the end was somewhat surprising. i returned the book to the library three or four years overdue.
so, now i'm about 50 pages from the end of everything that rises must converge. i've been reading this book for two months. i can only take a few pages at a time because it's so bleak and heavy-handed (spoiler alert: everyone goes to hell at the end). i can't explain why, but i just feel determined to finish. i don't like this book at all, in fact, i find it unpleasant. i think i'm just being stubborn, but i won't give up and move on to another book and, in books only, i am quite monogamous (ok-well unless it's an afternoon quickie like running with scissors or something).
so my question is this: how long should one keep trying to get into a book that one is not enjoying? what's the longest you ever took to successfully read a book? and what's up with flannery o'connor? is it going to be all shiftless niggers, overeducated know-nothings, and lupus? i just need to know if the hope i have that, at the end, flannery o'connor will use her powers to make the bicycles fly over the police roadblock is justified or foolhardy...
posted by chauncey swan @ Monday, January 23, 2006
1 Comments:
I'll finish anything I start. And it's not because I was raised Catholic, or I'm supersitious or anything, but if I hear if you don't read the whole book, you'll be gored by a bull, or you'll collapse near a bus, or your prosthetics will be stolen, or you'll be shot in a field. Some way, somehow, god will find out about what you've done and you will pay.
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