I Just Read About That…

[DIGRESSION]: Previously, in Sarah’s Book Journal there was a post about a book that she didn’t finish because she didn’t think it was good enough to finish. This is an admirable trait; in fact, if you do some basic searches online for “not finishing books” you will receive a lengthy hit list. However, I don’t seem to be able to give up on a book, no matter how dry or boring I think it is. This whole mindset stems from an incident in college where I claimed that David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” was terrible. So bad, in fact that I couldn’t finish it. My (influential) teacher said, how can you pass judgment if you haven’t finished the whole thing; it’s an unfair assessment. Ever since then, I seem to have a mental block about leaving books unfinished. This is not to say that I don’t leave books unfinished, because there are currently at least three books that I can think of, that are sitting in or around my bed that I have not opened in months; however, I don’t think of them as unfinished…in fact, one of them, Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin is actually something I’m looking forward to finishing, it just somehow got pushed to the side one day when a new book came along.

Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any books I’ve wanted to give up on. This probably says much more for my tolerance (I was an English major and learned the importance of finishing books) than my discriminating palette or choice of good books. Nevertheless, the more I thought about this not finishing books thing, the more it seems like a good idea. So, perhaps one of these books on my “to be read” list will prove utterly horrible, and I’ll simply toss it aside. Just think of the time I’d save! In fact, I saw the quote recently: “life’s too short to waste on bad books.” That’s probably worth considering. When I have the time.