Popular books I found unreadable.

These refer to books that in most cases were not only popular but recieved strong critical response.

1. The English Patient

I seem to only like his poetry, and in general I don’t like poetry so that might tell you something right there. Poets I have liked are Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas, Leonard Cohen and Auden so you can see I’m pretty middlebrow in that respect. And in the case of Thomas I preferred his short stories or the remarkable Under Milkwood.

2. Life of Pi

This was even worse for me. I am a big fan of the Brazilian author, Moacyr Scliar, most of whose work is out of print. Scliar wrote Max and the Cats from where this book got its inspiration. Scliar had a wonderfully funny book about a Jewish centaur who has a hard time finding a mate, centaurs in general being rare, and then when finally finding one, and falling hard for her, finds to his dismay that she is not Jewish.

3. Atonement

I’ve always like MacEwan, having read the earlier stories, and enjoying The Innocent, Amsterdam and Endless Love. And after this Saturday was quite an achievement but Atonement I found tedious. Haven’t yet made it to Chesil Beach.

4. The Raw Shark Texts

This was one of those books where every review seemed to be shouting to me, this is exactly the kind of book you live for. Read it now. I read it. I found it as formless as its central conceit.

5. Savage Detectives and Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I only put these together because I read them during the same time, finished neither and did not feel compelled to push myself to do so.

I have become much less accepting in my reading. The last two, had I read them ten years ago, might have ended up being favourites. Perhaps its from reading so many mysteries, so many fine mysteries such as those by Karin Fossum. You have a crime which gets the blood up, there is a central thrill that the book can build around, and you have a genre that tends toward characterization and plot which you’d think would be central to any book but don’t seem to be.

The French New Wave was composed of critics (many who became directors) who looked to America because they knew how to tell stories. Europeans were good at mood, and beauty but didn’t quite have the mechanism down. With varying degrees of success they emulated the streamlines and purposeful narrative.

I think that is what has happened to my reading. I do not feel as accomodated to meandering as I used to be. It just seems like substandard writing. I don’t mean description because I do like Dickens and Peake and I don’t require resolutions because I like Kafka. I just require desire. Desire on my part to keep going. And a feeling that the book is not so much about writing but that the writing is a tool to tell the story.