What to do when you read a book you just really don't like. To continue, or not to continue....
I am currently stuck in this debate because of my current read: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. It is a hard call to make because I think both paths have their pros and cons.
Reasons to finish the book:
1. Just because you don't enjoy it does not mean that it is 'bad' or that you cannot learn something from it, whether this is literary experience or life experience. If anything it is useful to ocasionally read a 'bad' book, because it just further helps us exemplify what characteristics make a 'good' book. An example I would use here is the Twilight series. Ok, not such great books, in fact I would go so far so to say they are quite apalling (first book is passable, all following, no, just no). However they do make fantastic reading when it comes to honing your own understanding of what constitutes effective characterisation and plot, simply because it is so obviously absent from the series. It is highlighted perfectly.
2. Conquering a hard or slow book does wonders for your reading abilities in my opinion. The discipline and committment required to get used to or perservere with a difficult writing style can be applied to other pieces of writing you have wanted to read but saw as previously too advanced. I always find the book I read after a particulary hard slog is absolutely effortless. It can also set me on a roll, giving me the momentum to read several books in quick succession.
3. Whenever the book is discussed, you can say you have read it and contribute to that conversation. Your negative opinion can be valuable and provide an interesting viewpoint.
4. You won't be haunted by the book sitting forever on your shelf, glaring at you, making you feel like some kind of failure
5. It won't be a waste of your money (if it was expensive that is).
Reasons not to finish the book:
1. Sometimes it is a matter of reading the wrong book at the right time. I personally see each book has having a 'difficulty level' and am willing to acknowledge when maybe I am not at the level to fully appreciate it yet. Everyone's 'difficulty ratings' are based on different factors. For me Moby Dick and Middlemarch will have to wait for a little while. Although brilliant, the sheer density of the language made it hard for me to get through. I will come back to them once I have levelled up.
2. Give it a second chance. So put it down and come back to it in a few books time. I remember Jo Napoli's Daughter of Venice was like this. I just could not get past the first few pages. It bored me. So I left it for a year and came back to it. Second time can be the charm. Don't give up yet, always give it a second chance.
2. Sometimes a book is just...bad and we hate reading it. As long as we can explain why the book enraged us so and learn from this, sometimes it can be ok to put a book down. I know this is going to make me super unpopular with some people, but a book I have done this with is John Green's Looking for Alaska. I just couldn't do it. That said I think John Green is a total cutie and a clever guy. I just cannot handle his prose or storylines. At all. When I put that down I felt a relief I cannot describe. Some books, we will find, are just impossible for us to connect with, even if others have been able to. Everyone and every book is different.
3. Life is short! Let's be epicurean and enjoy ourselves! Why waste time ploughing through a heavy boring text when we could be reading something wonderful! Give it up, move on! Who cares it cost you over $30 from an overpriced bookshop! Go out! Buy another one!
Back to Flaubert. Madame Bovary is proving to be a combination of many of the feelings I have described above. In short, I am not digging it. Not at all. Strangely enough the best way I can decribe my experience of reading the book is by likening it to the Sims3.
So Sims 2 was awesome. It was a hyper-reality, where things were real enough to be plausible, aka, the sims body features, their jobs etc. but also contained elements such as aliens to make things 'kooky' and engaging. To make reality more interesting. A zany reality.
Then along came Sims3. I was so excited for it but upon testing it out I was bitterly disappointed. It was so realistic...it was just boring. Why would I want to escape from ordinary life by playing a PC version of ordinary life? There was nothing engaging or relaxing about the hard slog of balancing my sims work, life and family of the sims 3....in fact things were even more complicated than in Sims 2, everything from eating to making friends, to getting a promotion required more effort to achieve and yet the achievements themselves when acquired seemed less rewarding somehow. And to my chagrin, there were no aliens or 'kooky' elements to speak of. What even was the point anymore? This was no longer a hyper-reality, it was just another reality I wanted to seek respite from. It was too close to home and lacking that crucial element that made Sims 2 so entertaining: the critical element, the sense of irony one could feel inserted into the game by its makers. They were having a laugh at real-life by emphasising many of it's silliest moments in the game itself. It was humorous, ironic and wacky. These reflections made it insightful regarding how society views marriage, cheating, having boyfriends and girlfriends, failing school.
Madame Bovary, a classic piece of literary realism, is the more along the lines of Sims 3 for me. While I think Flaubert successfully achieves his goal to be as objectively realistic as possible, the result is a bizarrely stilted and dry piece of work. I guess maybe I was thrown off by it's modesty as I won't lie, I was hoping for a Lady Chatterly's Lover kinda work. But no. For a text of literary realism is is surprisngly modest, and although candid, not at all engaging or insightful. Hardly scandalous.
Emma is a realistic character, and yes so is her husband Charles Bovary. This is not the problem, it is that Flaubert writes about them with such little perspective or personal contribution from himself regarding what HE think of the characters or even what he wants US to think of the characters. Devoid of any creative flair, they almost seem like boring neighbours next door. Why do I want to know anything about them? Why should I care that Emma is bored stiff and her husband is a mediocre bore? Flaubert does not seem to critique his characters, and I find that deeply troubling from the perspective of someone trying to enjoy his work.
In a way I do believe this is a testament to Flaubert's ability to pierce the heart of reality....maybe I just don't want reality. Or maybe at the end of the day if I want to read about reality, I want it to be a more insightful reality then the one presented in this novel, or at least more different or exotic from my own. It is not Flaubert's fault he chose rural France and a bored housewife as his novels plot foundations. Maybe some people find this really fascinating. They must or else why is the novel still read and referenced so often. Why is it stocked amongst the classics? Historically speaking the story would have been considered highly interesting, even disturbing, at the time it was published. It must havee been shocking to read something so candid, completely without artificice to smooth over the taboo or socially unnaceptable sections. I also think these foundations have the potential to be very interesting, after all I would read a story about a cactus plant named Harold if I thought it was well written. I think the problem here is the literary genre of realism, and further more Flaubert's execution of it.
Even when being he does venture into descriptive territory Flaubert falls short of creating anything vivid for me, like a beautiful scene or even an ugly scene. He always seems instead in his stripped back style to be simply listing objects present rather than engaging with them and describing them for me to visualise, for example:
'The garden, longer than wide, ran between two mud walls with esapliered apricots, to a hawthorn hedge that separated it from the field. In the middle was a slate sundial on a brick pedestal; four flower beds with eglantines surrounded symetrically the more useful kitchen garden bed.'
This is a lovely list, but what of the garden Flaubert?? Does this array of features make it pretty in your opinion? Ugly? Why should I care that this is how the garden looks? To use an analogy to summarise my argument: I do not look at a piece of art simply to validate its existence, but to draw from it some kind of meaning or to experience some kind of emotional response. Here though Flaubert's objectivism devoid of any kind of opinion or reflection is resulting in only one thing from me: boredom.
If this is his style, should I bother continuing? I obviously don't get realism in literature...I find it articulate but dry and without insight or reflection. So, continue, or not? At this stage the only reason I would want to read it is to be immersed in the experience that is literary realism, to familiarise myself with this style and then hopefully in doing so learn something valuable about the history of literature as a whole. But is it worth it? When I find it so dull?
Only time will tell. Maybe I should start Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes, and try again after that. Take the 'give it a second chance' course of action. After all it has worked before.
No comments:
Post a Comment