Stuck on You

Stuck on a book: ugh. Why do some books become such Sisyphean labors? I toil endlessly, apparently making no progress, yet unable to put the book down and call it quits. Why?? Well, between January 1 and now I've become stuck on SEVEN books--let's examine those to see what we can learn.


1. Everything That Rises Must Converge, Flannery O'Connor.

Why I keep trying: Apparently she's important and good. People like her writing; a friend recently saw a bumper sticker that proclaimed "I'd rather be reading Flannery O'Connor." (Anything that inspires a stranger to put a bumper sticker on her car has GOT to be worthwhile... right?)

Sticking point(s): Feeling of obligation, that I Ought To Have Read Flannery O'Connor. Lack of enthusiasm for the much-touted violence and horror in her work. A belief anyway that short stories are like getting kicked in the head.



2. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace

Why I keep reading: The essays are funny and interesting.

Sticking point(s): The author is dead, so I won't get any more essays from him. I don't want to waste them. Plus, though... knowing that the author committed suicide makes the anxiety, isolation, and ferocious intelligence in his work less funny / validating, and more sad / alarming. There are many good and moving essays on this exact subject so that's all I'll say about it.



3. Enslaved by Ducks, Bob Tarte


Why I keep reading: I love it! It's laugh-out-loud funny. Also, I can find out exactly what crazy people are thinking without having to talk to them.

Sticking point(s): A before-bed reread. Progress is slow because I go to sleep after a few pages.








4. Good Dogs Doing Good

Why I keep trying: Essays and true stories about dogs--right up my alley. A friend wrote one of the essays, and I have read it several times, and it is wonderful. I feel that out of loyalty I should read the entire collection.

Sticking point(s): I'm afraid the other essays will read like short stories, and/or that they will be corny. I don't like short stories (see #1).



5. The Broom of the System, David Foster Wallace

Why I keep reading: I like David Foster Wallace.

Sticking point(s): I don't really like this book. It's a little ridiculous and uninspiring, as if Pynchon and Updike had a book-baby. I'm embarrassed for it.






6. Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creatures from the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf, and One Other Story We Couldn't Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out.

Why I keep reading: The story in here by Nick Hornby is my favorite short story. Ever. I love it. It is my exception to #1.

Sticking point(s): I haven't read any of the other stories; I just keep re-reading my favorite.



7. The Elements of Style (Illustrated), Strunk and White.

Why I keep reading: It's interesting and clears up many matters. It's got pictures.

Sticking point(s): More of a reference book than a page-turner.




CONCLUSIONS: The following book would be tailor-made for me to get stuck on: A sad or alarming book of short stories that I feel obligated to read, which I attempt to read before bed and do not enjoy.

Actually, except for the read-before-bed part, that EXACTLY describes Everything that Rises Must Converge. It will be converging with other books from the area, back where I got it at The Bookstore Where Books Are A Dollar. Hope its next owner has a different Stuckage List than my own.

Narrow Dog to Indian River--Terry Darlington

Narrow Dog to Indian River by Terry Darlington. A travel memoir in which a septuagenarian English couple takes their skinny dog and their skinny boat down the broad American Atlantic coast. The male of the species establishes a narrative tone and really just...hammers away at that the whole time. The book was printed in blue ink, and the narrative voice is supremely irritating. I didn't finish it and I wouldn't recommend it. Nancy Pearl gave it two librarians up, though, so the book does have some excellent supporters.

How to Buy a Love of Reading

It's $16.92 in hardback at Amazon, $9.99 to put on your Kindle, and $13.12 for your Audible audio player. But I got mine from the library, and to the library it (the book--not the love) will soon return.


Interesting premise in a nutshell: a teenage girl's nouveau riche father rents an author, hoping to (a) impress the neighbors, and (b) commission a book that will inspire in his non-bookish daughter a love of reading.

There are aspects to this book I really enjoy, including its wit and its playful riffs on/with postmodernism while remaining blessedly reader-friendly. The character of the daughter, also, is truly likable. As a reader I enjoy discovering the surprising layers to her superficially bland character, and root for her to become the strong person she has the potential to be. If I were going to continue reading the book, it would be for the sake of the doubtlessly satisfying developments in this area.

But I am not going to continue reading it. I'm on page 175, a little less than halfway through. The plot is moving slowly, and I feel like I've read passages that impart the same general information or mood again and again. As in the second Twilight book (which finally extinguished my interest in the series), a lot of time is spent on anguished teenage nail-biting and soul-searching. The conflicts, social milieu*, and secondary characters are largely uninteresting to me.

There are so many underlying good points, though, I will probably check out the author's next book.

* I've spent my share of time socializing (read: drinking) with teachers at a private school in the Hamptons. They describe kids like this novel's teens, whose enormous disposable incomes and minuscule parental presence have had predictably deleterious effects on the kids. So I know first- (okay, second-) hand that these situations happen. But...this book didn't really make me care.