Saturday, April 23, 2016

Shut The Book Up: The DNF Files




I struggled with a couple of books recently and had to give them up.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey. As much as I loved the glimpse of Randle Patrick McMurphy's undershorts (boxers with white whales, given to him by an English major he was sleeping with, he said), I got so annoyed and then depressed with the misogyny.  My sympathies were with Nurse Ratched, and I suggest that someone write a novel telling her side of the story.

It Can't Happen Here - Sinclair Lewis.  I feel bad about this one. I adore Lewis' novels, and enjoy a bit of dystopia. I was all primed to curl up on the sofa with this book and a couple of news channels murmuring (?) in the background. Don't know exactly why I stalled. Pretty sure it's not a forever thing, like the Kesey book.

The bad news: I feel like a bookworm slob when I DNF.
The good news: Both books came from the library.

Have you DNFed lately? Do you hate it as much as I do?

4 comments:

martine said...

I will often persevere with things I m not really loving, just because I hate having put time and energy into it. I recently gave up on Nora Webster by Colm Toibin that lots of people seem to think is wonderful, because it was moving so slowly and I could not get myself to care about her.

Anonymous said...

I give up more and more often these days. I've even started skimming. Who has time for books you don't enjoy?

Bybee said...

Martine, I was looking at Nora Webster at the library the other day. James, I should be more like you and get in touch with my inner skimmer.

Jenny @ Reading the End said...

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of those books I read because the people I was baby-sitting for had it on their bookshelves and I'd run out of other things to read. So I can say I've read it, but I also don't have to waste precious adulthood time on it, because, yeah, it's reeeeally not the book for me.