Banging on the Plexiglass: Books You Ought to Like But Don't

[fictional]

Have you ever had the following experience? You are reading a book, and you think, "I really should like this!" Suppose your favorite thing in the whole world is tea, followed closely by magical adventures, and then you discover, Lo & Behold, someone has written a book about Enchanted Lapsang Souchong, and it even has an interlude in a cabbage patch, and cabbage just happens to be your favorite vegetable. In addition, it features a feisty heroine, and a stuttering hero (and you hate to admit it, but stutters make shivers crawl up and down your spine) - and you like to think of yourself as fairly fiesty, and admiring of fiesty-ness, so that should be all right....

...and then you sit down to read, and for some reason... it's just not doing it! But...you want it to work! You ought to like it. You are rooting for the author, in fact you are the exact opposite of the traditional hostile and suspicious audience. They had you at Enchanted Tea, for God's sake!

You keep reading as hard as you can, till the taste of ashes filles your mouth, and you can no longer battle the despair.

What does this? Why does it happen? Sometimes all the ingredients are right, but the dish just didn't fly. This feeling is even worse when you can tell that the book is well written. It's a bit like having really bad insomnia - wanting to rest so very badly, feeling the tiredness wash over you, but unable to break through the glass window that's separating you and sleep. You can see sleep from there. You just can't get to it.

What throws you out of books? Thoughts?

Comments

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

Films are the same. I don't recall the last time I was thrown out of a novel because I don't read fiction very often, but I was quite put out the other day when I came across what looked like an interesting trilogy and one of the characters was described as having 'fat eyelids'. And that, said John, was that.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'm behind on replies!

Fat eyelids are wholly alarming. Just for my curiosity, was this meant as a compliment? I can't decide whether that would make it more or less disturbing...

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think it was a compliment. The character had huge potential, but when I flipped back to the beginning for the description -- because I like to read the description before I commit to engaging with a character -- he had pink skin and fat eyelids. I'm not really that shallow but I find it hard to erase an author's descriptions from my mind.

Ack! Thunder and lightning.

[sykii.livejournal.com]

Pacing. Rhythm. I'd guess it's all the stuff we don't necessarily register consciously, but that matters oh so much on some deeper level.
Also, might be related to the morbid fascination with "there but for the grace..." journals? Maybe sometimes very similar is too similar.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Nothing left for us to contribute? Sometimes things that are too "literary" really hit me this way...

[calloocallay.livejournal.com]

I had this experience with that Angela Carter book from the 70s with the sex change. I was ALL PREPARED to love it. It had New York City! Alternate History! Lots of sex! I had liked other Angela Carter stories! The book's graphic design was good! And then, I jsut didn't care. I didn't even read as far as the sex change. Two things threw me out of it and they are the two things that generally throw me out of books I'm prepared to like: a complete lack of characters I can care about; that thing with the writing style where suddenly it feels like free verse paragraph poetry in the descriptive passages about how the world is an amazing miasma of swirling events and bright purple glitter - sharp in its lovely shininess, etc. I can come up with more concrete examples if that doesn't make sense, but a lot of books do it, especially in contemporary fiction,fantasy or non, and I find it tiresome and also it usually leads me to suspect there may be no narrative causality in the plot.

So, is this post because you didn't like that Ngaio Marsh book? I only said MAYBE you'd like it.

[magnetgirl.livejournal.com]

The bloody chamber was fucking AWESOME, though, yeah?

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Hehehe. Actually it's completely non-related to Ngaio Marsh, which for unconnected reasons I haven't started yet. I feel optimistic however.

I was just trying to find new things to read and feeling disenheartened by several disappointments. I can't remember the last time a book -- ate me, you know? It's been happening with tv, but not so much with new books. And one can only re-read so many times in a row.

[magnetgirl.livejournal.com]

I do this much more with movies than with books. I invest so much in books that I like them most of the time, even if I don't LOVE them, even when they don't click for me.

Actually, that's a lie, you know who this happens for me with? DAVID FUCKING SEDARIS. I try to so hard to be impressed, and passages he writes can be quite funny, but, overall-I'm just BLAH about him.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. I've never been able to get into him.

I have this weird mood thing, where if things don't stroke me just right, i can't open. that ended up way more sexual than I meant, but you know what I mean? I think I do it more for books than movies. Maybe it has to do with amount of exposure?

[magnetgirl.livejournal.com]

So what you're saying is we have to tape the book to your hands, force your eyes open and MAKE you read before you'll enjoy it?