Books & Authors

The last three books I tried to read I couldn't read. NO, they weren't too hard. YES, they were kind of boring. But the real reason goes something like this:

So I pick up Grapes of Wrath, and as usual, I open it up and read the panels. Then I read the front and back cover. I see these quotes by people I've never heard of saying how great the book is, and then I see a picture of the author (John Steinbeck) in his "I am one of the world's greatest writers and I wrote a great big book which everyone will remember me for" pose. The pose basically has him staring into the camera in a slightly menacing look with a cigarette in his hand or something.

Anyway...

I couldn't finish it because of this scene about a turtle that was too symbolic and open to allegoristic interpretation.

So, x# of months later, I pick up the Invisible Man. Once again, I go through my "analyze a book without reading it by reading everything on the book-but the book" procedure. And once again, I find a picture of the author. He's also in his super egotistical pose with another cigarette.

I actually start to read the book and I couldn't read it anymore because it was too dramatic and the scenes were just so ridiculously illustrating the point that the author was trying to make. It's like the character's life is just one bad nightmare day after day, just to make this STATEMENT that the author is trying to say.

So that's 2 books I couldn't read.

Then I pick up the Painted Bird by this other dude who I've never heard of. I grudgingly look on the back cover only to find another black & white picture of another author in another menacing pose.
It's scary to find authors like that.

So then I read the book and I just can't read it because I know it's going to be super grotesque, dramatic, painful, and all that stuff that makes a book "amazing."

Bad excuses.