I will usually finish a book I have started, even if I am having a difficult time with it. As I mentioned in my previous post, Five Unreadable Novels that I Have Read, I took three years to read the Tunnel. Although I believe I have an iron constitution for reading material, like most people I have those books I could not finish reading. Here are five books that I could not finish.

Empire of the Senseless
by Kathy Acker

Not too surprisingly, this novel was completely senseless, seemingly deconstructed beyond any coherent meaning. I suppose that was the point. I stopped around the point that someone was being tortured by a machine that, if I recall correctly, was shoving a shaft of metal up his anus. It wasn’t the graphic nature of the scene (or the rest of the novel) that caused me stop, it was an inability to connect to anything that was being described.

Fellowship of the Ring
JRR Tolkien

I was younger (gradeschool) when I tried to read this book, and never picked it up again. Not enough D&D style action, and a prose that was too dense. I stopped early in the novel. The hobbits were camping and munching on mushrooms.

The Stand: Expanded Edition
Stephen King

In the expanded edition of The Stand material that had originally been cut from the original printing was restored. In the forward of this edition, Stephen King said that some of what had been cut deserved to be left on the cutting room floor. I never read the original printing, but I am pretty sure that a lot could more could have been left on the cutting room floor and nothing should have been restored. I don’t remember at what point in the story I stopped reading, but I had just finished reading ten pages that could just as well have been four words.

V
Thomas Pynchon

I went through a phase, shortly after graduating from college, where I was highly distracted by the writing of a novel. Any perceived lapses in style or craft interfered with my enjoyment of the story. I began this novel with this distraction. It just didn’t strike me as well written. (I had previously read the Crying of Lot 49 and had not been that impressed.) At first, I was sustained by the setting of the story, Norfolk, VA. I had lived in the area while attending Old Dominion University. The mention of Waterside and other street names that I could visualize engaged my interest to a point but not enough for me to keep reading.

War of the Worlds
HG Welles

War of the Worlds was another novel that I had attempted to read when I was in gradeschool, failed, and never picked it up again. My most distinct memory about this attempt involved a classmate that grabbed it from me, took a look at it, and asked, “Where are the pictures? I only read books with pictures.” He handed it back. Although, I don’t think the lack of pictures was a deal breaker for me, I do think I had the same problems with the language that I had with Fellowship of the Ring.