Monday, August 18, 2008

tell me if I should keep reading these books

I was about two chapters into Gun With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem. Then I got kind of irritated at the noirish-private-dick-meets-sci-fi trope, and stopped reading.

I was about 1/3 of the way into The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Klay when I got tired of the heavy exposition and stopped reading.

Should I keep reading these books? Is there great payoff?

I generally have a good attention span. Or, at least I used to. It's been years since I've read hundreds of pages of the Russians (Dostoevsky in particular, was my fave) or Dickens. But these books are not very long, and they're ostensibly about fun and exciting topics, and I'm just not feeling them. Should I persist? I finished a Willa Cather book in a day, and I picked up some contemporary lit fic (but the good kind, Amber! I swear!) about the same subjects I am generally drawn to--busted-up love, etc. Perhaps I should try again.