Sometimes I do not finish books.
Now, I tend to tear into books like a starving bear. And once I start, I like to chomp. I am not a slow food reader. I do not sit and savor. I am shoving words in my head like I’d shovel hot fries in my mouth on the way home from the drive-through. I like a fat book and a long plane ride, no interruptions, just one long textual binge.
The best bus rides from NY to DC featured the excellent non-fiction The Devil’s Teeth and the amazing Ursula Le Guin novel Voices. Four hours never felt so short.
I flew back from St. Croix barely speaking to my boyfriend because The Thirteenth Tale was so utterly gripping. It’s fortunate I saved it for the ride home—if I had started it earlier, I would have ignored the scenery and sat on the beach reading.
I like to start and not stop. I once burst into tears when Bryan picked me up at work because the new book I had taken to work for that morning’s commute was sitting on my desk in the office and I didn’t have the key and it was the Friday of a long weekend.
So not finishing a book seems a little weird. And yet, I don’t feel badly about it.
But recent conversations with a friend who feels compelled to finish books, even if she finds them dull, have made me wonder—should I be feeling guilty about tossing aside a book without a second thought? Is it morally wrong to give up on a book once you have begun?
For a long time, The Whistling Woman was stashed next to my bedside lamp. I would pick it up and read a few pages, then set it down and forget about it. When I moved, I put it in the donation bag. Unfinished.
Sorry, A. S. Byatt. I loved Possession, but I just didn’t care about any of your witty academics or their wacky friends.
I’ve also abandoned Crime and Punishment with only 50 pages left before I went to Russia; The Mill on the Floss after 10 pages in; Dark Star by Paul Theroux when I couldn’t bear his writing voice; A View of One’s Own even though it was given to me by a friend whose taste is impeccable; and The Corrections, when I realized I could not be in the company of the writer or his creations for another second.
There are exceptions. In college, I tossed Pride and Prejudice after the first chapter, only to finally read it when I was sick and stuck at home about 6 years later. Now it is battered and beloved. And the truly irritating first 75 pages of The Other Wind gave way to an enjoyable, though slightly ridiculous novel when I picked it up again out of desperation. And jumped ahead a chapter or two.
It seems people assume they don’t like to read based on school experiences, which is too bad. I know I don’t like Henry James, because I’ve read five of them. And hated every one. But that’s ok.
I’m under no obligation ever again to read one. And most books aren’t written by, or in the style of, Henry James.
So don’t feel like you can’t try something else if you don’t a genre or an author.
There are so many books. And I want to enjoy their company. I don’t want to pretend to take a call on my cell phone or recognize someone across the room to get away—I don’t even need to say, it’s not you, it’s me. I can just close the book.
And then tear into another one.
