Oh Infinite Jest. You magnificent, pretentious bastard. I rue the day I tried to read you.
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As others have said, do not read Fall as your first Stephenson. Any of his earlier books would be a much better place to start. While Snow Crash is a good recommendation, I’d read Cryptonomicon the three books of the Baroque Cycle and Reamde, all of which share characters and themes and even a sort of shared universe or lost history of the world with Fall. Fall has a number of references to prior Stephenson characters and novels and in my opinion is at its best after having read his other stuff.
Anyone else think it ironic that one of the books on the list famously contains the quote:
I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! – When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
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Peak douche-bro
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Gödel, Escher, Bach.
(On and off since 1986.)
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Such a great concept. But so hard to read. Like physically hard. Do I read the footnotes while I’m reading or go back or all the other weird stuff.
I remember pounding through the entire existing Song of Ice and Fire series, at the time it was 5 books, because I wanted to have it read before I watched the TV series and was worried that he’d put out the 6th book before I finished the first 5. I remember being worried because he had finished the 5th book 2 years before and had promised not to be so slow in getting the 6th out.
Turns out I could have taken my time.
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If you’re going to read Stephenson, I recommend starting with Snow Crash. After reading that book, every time I walk into a bookstore I head to the shelf with the “S” authors first, just in case he wrote a new book that I missed. (The next shelf I look for is the “G” shelf, in case Gibson has written anything new.)
While none of Stephenson’s other books have totally risen to the level of Snow Crash, most have been very enjoyable.
I read Moby Dick in adulthood, on a Kindle, and I wonder now was it an abridged edition, as it didn’t seem that long/tough to me at all (excepting some of the whale-butchering minutiae). Or maybe I just liked it… as noted previously, it is pretty darn funny in parts.
I love Don Quixote (not on this list) and while technically I’ve never consciously ABANDONED it, I haven’t finished it yet either.
Side note: a loooong time ago I read an SF story in a collection that I’d dearly love to find again. It was about a guy who had some kind of special future brain(?), maybe some sort of Johnny Mnemonic character (?), rich clients paid him to learn languages for some reason (?), but he has to be wiped clean before the next job, every time. The story itself IIRC took place atop a hill where he is using heavy weapons to hold off the heavies from his employment agency who are trying to bring him in for reprogramming, but he’s determined to finish Don Quixote in the original before he gets all knowledge of Spanish wiped from his mind. So basically it alternates between him firing cannon at people and reading Cervantes… it’s a long shot - but does anyone know what it was???
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My wife and I have a bet going. She thinks she can finish Gravity’s Rainbow before I finish Dhalgren.
The bet was made in 2005. I have quite forgotten the stakes.
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Ah Dhalgren.
How I tried and tried. I dropped Infinite Jest, I ditched Gravity’s Rainbow, I ghosted Moby Dick, I stomped out on Gormenghast and slammed the door. But with Dhalgren I was like the abused spouse who keeps going back to get beaten up all over again. Multiple times. One day, one day I tell you, I will finish that magnificent beast and find true love. Or die.
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For some reason, I had to move to Switzerland to be able to finish Doktor Faustus. It haunted me for more than two decades not to have finished it.
I read everything I could get my hands on as a teenager, and only when I came legally of age (and started doing weird shit), I lost the ability to read anything with interest. At that time, I came across Faustus, and it was a crisis to realise I lost my ability to live in books. I finished all the ones I couldn’t then.
Nearly all.
The only other book I probably don’t even will try again is Being and nothingness. I like Sartre, in general, but that’s not reading. That’s the literary equivalent of working in a deep pit coal mine with open light, and just your hands.
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The most memorable DNF for me was Treasure Island, which I had to read for a class assignment in high school. I absolutely hated it (although I don’t really remember why) and never finished it.
I also couldn’t finish Twilight. The movies were better. (Which shows just how low the bar was.)
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Reading it, I had the impression that Orwell recognized it was a slog and decided people were much more likely to make it through if he threw in some sex scenes.
It was a long time ago, but I recall the second half of Exodus is pretty much, “The Temple has to be built just like this, and the rituals have to be performed like this”, all in excruciating detail, followed by “The Israelites then built the temple just like that, and performed all the rituals just like that”. And then the whole thing gets repeated again in Leviticus. That would stop a lot of people cold, credibility issues or otherwise.
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I enjoyed that but when the kid was small I was on an old school scifi and adventure binge and that was one I read to him at bedtime. They have a very different feel and pacing than modern fiction.
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