Every so often, I'll get a copy of a book that I missed in school (you know, one of the ones most people read at some point in high school or college but I somehow missed) and add it to my stack of books. I like to fill in these gaps in my reading, in case I missed something good.
One I read not too long ago was Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. It's a challenging read, but I think it was worth the time.
On the other hand, I recently got myself a copy of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. I've tried very hard to read it, but it's beyond tedious. When I find a book difficult, I'll read a chapter or two and then read some of another book. In the case of this waste of paper, I would go for a few chapters and then read another book in its entirety.
The breaks didn't work. Apparently, it had nothing to do with my mood or whatever other book I had just finished (thinking maybe I had to be in the right frame of mind for Kerouac).
Nope. There's no question now. After a mere 115 pages--the reading of which has taken weeks, because I couldn't take more than a little of this book at a time--I'm done with it. It's a piece of crap. Whatever drug-addled, deluded morons decided this "beat generation" manure was worth reading should be beaten to death with copies of this damn book. They can start with my copy, 'cause I'm sure done with it!
2 comments:
Heh. I don't know if I'd call it a piece of crap exactly, but a few years ago I started to read On the Road, thinking I'd really get into it, but I remember being kind of disappointed. I got mired halfway through and never finished.
oh... I loved On the Road... have read it about 50 times. But then, I grew up in the middle of conservatives surrounded by cornfields. I was pretty desperate to get on a road. Any road. And Sal's road was at least, well... he had these cool huraches...
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