A Week of Duds. . .

So, I usually pick up about five or six books when I'm at the library because chances are, I may not like one or two of them; and it gives me four or five others to fall back on.  If there was ever a jackpot for duds, then I definitely hit it.  And I hit it hard.

After having already read two of my choices, I started my week with Jose Saramago's Blindness.  The book had an interesting concept, a bit of suspense, and an overwhelming dose of edginess.  But I just could not get past the writing style.  It was chock full of run-on sentences and contained no breaks nor punctuation for the dialogue.  Mind you, had one of my students passed in a paper looking like this, it would have been handed right back to him.  So it's a little disturbing that a published author can get away with this, even if his purpose is creativity.  I was constantly confusing the characters ~ who did not have names, by the way ~ and had trouble visualizing parts of the setting.  Since I found myself blinded by the story and the writing style, I gave up on it at about page 72.

Then I picked up The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow.  I was really looking forward to this one.  I needed a "feel-good" story about a quirky somebody who builds a spectacular life for himself out of virtually nothing but his own gumption and determination.  I needed a little inspiration for my own never-ending, fruitless job search that I killed myself in college over and invested my life's savings in.

Strike 2!

If a book is going to be over 500 pages long, then it better keep me entertained, enlightened, intrigued, and glued to the pages.  The first eight pages contained so many characters; and quite frankly, I was not in the mood to care or keep up with them.  It was unfair ~ I usually give a book a good 50 to 100 pages before I decide to jump ship ~ but I willingly walked the plank and bailed out on Page 11.

I also tried Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop.  Since I only read the introduction and the first two pages of the story itself, I clearly didn't give this one the chance it deserved.  Classics usually draw me right in.  But I think by the time I finally got to it that I was completely frustrated and needed a book that would instantly hook me in and take me for the ride.

It was quite the unfortunate week for reading.  Perhaps each of these books are stunning and dazzling in their own right.  However, I failed to find it in any one of my choices this week.  But that's one of the fun aspects of reading ~ it's very subjective.  I guess it's back to the library for another round of choices . . .