/lit/ - Literature★

it depends.

some after a few pages. maybe even one.

maybe i will pick them up again, maybe not.

sometimes i keep going despite not being totally convinced.

on a couple of books i read them halfway and went on a long hiatus and then pick them up again.

It partly depends on author familiarity and the reputation of the work. If a given work had some rough edges, or certain parts I don't enjoy, I'll usually stick with it based on the two. Anything under two hundred pages is a guaranteed finish unless it's particularly not working for me.

Look to experienced authors with a wide range of works. They may have many a tome to their name; yet, they usually have some much shorter works that capture part of what they are, and what they are all about. Examples:

Gore Vidal: A Search for the King, Messiah

Issac Asimov: The acclaimed Foundation series, other earlier fictional novels.

L. Niel Smith: Wardove

Thomas Pynchon: The Crying of Lot 49, Inherent Vice

Graham Greene: Pretty much any of his novels.

Charles Bukowski: Ditto.

W. Somerset Maugham: Cakes and Ale

Frederick Prokosch: The Idols Of The Cave

With all else equal, choose works written later in an author's career. This increases the chance it will be worth the struggle. Furthermore, look to authors who double as poets. Their poetry may not be well lauded, but the experience gained as poets will be noticeable in their prose. They are given to delivering greater compression, with a stronger impression; they simply make better use of your time. Frederick Prokosh and Charles Bukowski are good examples of this, despite being about as far apart in kind, and in style as you can get.

Finally, there's always the long haul. Ignore chapters. Stop where you stop and apply a bookmark. Carry on from there the next day. That's how I recently tackled Pynchon's Against the Day, and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (many, many, many) years ago. It works.

I said something about it in another thread, but i only made it 2 chapters into Less Than Zero before I dropped it. I found it really boring.

I finish everything I start on principle unless it is total trash like Poison Study.

Depends on the exact book. Episodic/short stories can survive errors. Long books give away the character of the author quickly, for better or worse.

Fifty pages, or two chapters. Depending on which is a more reasonable test drive.

>>11135

Doesn't answer the question. It does demonstrate that careful preselection leads to more successes at seeing the end page.

>>11127 (OP)

>either not enjoyable or educational.

Educational is a key to reading endurance. As I Lay Dying was a brutal slog for about the first half, until things started to click for me. It was well worth finishing, yet if I was reading this purely for entertainment I would have dropped it after the first twenty pages.

>>11145

What's educational about As I Lay Dying? I tried reading Faulkner, but I just don't find his writing appealing.

The only books I've ever dropped where A Clockwork Orange and Bleeding Edge, both on page 5 or 6.

Reading takes up a lot of time so for me reading a book that I really don't think I'm going to like can be a drag. I always try to at least make it to the middle of the book before I decide whether or not the book has been a waste of time. I actually check the number of chapters and read to the middle chapter, and if by the midpoint of the book it still hasn't grabbed me it's going in the trash.

You'd be surprised how many classics didn't really grab me before the second act. The Hobbit, for instance, really didn't pick up for me until the barrel ride scene. The Shadow Over Innsmouth is kind of slow until about midway through. Some authors just write that way, I guess, so I try to give everything more of a chance than it might deserve but at least enough for good books to slip through my filter.