I usually press on, if I'm enjoying it. I read a LOT of modern and postmodern "difficult" fiction from Joyce to Rushdie, to DFW, to Pynchon to DeliLLo to Lowry. I have points in the text where I'll really slow down and relish it if I'm in the mood and try to unravel it... I have other points where I just push forward.

I'll confess, though, that I mainly read for pure enjoyment these days, and if it's not a "page turner," then I'm likely not going to finish it. There are just too many things competing for my attention. As an English Lit. graduate student, though, I pretty much survived by just pressing on.

I'll take any crazy convoluted, encyclopedic modern or pomo fiction over reading Shakespeare's plays, though. Jesus. I had to do two a week for a Tue/Thursday class one semester. We'd do a different play each day. We were expected to have read the play and viewed it prior to coming to class as well as ready some critical piece on the play. That was awful.

This post was edited on 10/23/17 at 3:53 pm

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Posted by McLemore

Member since Dec 2003

31652 posts

Posted on 10/31/17 at 9:54 am to hogfly

quote:
DeLillo

i'm about to start over with Underworld. I was in a bad place when i started it the first time and just got lost (would read chapters without paying attention), but I love the writing.

One writer whom I'm supposed to love and just find tedious is Proust.

There are so many authors/works that were groundbreaking for their time and worthy of reading for that fact and to understand various developments over time, but in and of themselves are meh-burgers. I'm giving Proust one more try and then I'll accept my fate as a non-intellectual.

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