On books that we have tried and failed with
A while back, I was reading a piece by Zachary Woolfe in the New York Times. It was about Ursula Oppens, the American pianist, who has just turned 80. She has no intention of retiring, said Woolfe, but she has “made some compromises with age.” For example, she will no longer play the “Hammerklavier” Sonata (Beethoven) in recital. (That is a whale of a work.) Also, she will no longer try to learn Gaspard de la nuit (Ravel), which is an extremely difficult work. She has “made peace” with that, said Woolfe.
In a blogpost, I wrote,
This reminded me of Bleak House — Bleak House and me. I won’t retell my tale. (I wrote about this in an essay a few years ago, here.) But suffice it to say: Decades ago, Harold Bloom said that Bleak House is pretty much the best novel in English. I tried to read it for years and years. Just could not. Could not persevere in it. After a final push, I gave up.
I don’t say there is anything wrong with Bleak House, heaven knows. But there is something wrong with me — with me and Bleak House. And I have made my peace (sort of) with never reading it, or finishing it.
I then asked readers, “Are there works of literature or music or something else about which you feel the same?”
Well. Let’s have some mail. A reader writes,
Bleak House happens to be my favorite Dickens novel, although Dickens is not even my favorite 19th-century English novelist. And I can’t really put my finger on why it is my favorite, it just is. It seems an absolute sprawling mess, its many threads barely relating to one another, and yet somehow it hangs together. But I don’t see why one should slog through it out of a sense of duty, so I think you’ve made the right choice to drop it.
Which brings me to my confession: I don’t “get” Mahler. There are many moments I love, but I find his symphonies too much like my description of Bleak House — sprawling, with many threads that barely seem to relate to one another. And I can’t make sense of it all. I’m obviously missing something, and perhaps one day I’ll make more of an effort.
Ooh, I have a whole speech on this: learning to love, or appreciate, Wagner, Bruckner, and Mahler. But I will spare you that speech now. (Quick point: I don’t think you have to try to like anything. You do or you don’t. With repeated exposure, you may like something — even love something — you did not before. But I don’t think an effort is required. Not everything speaks to everybody.)
Another reader:
Jay, when you brought this up, I immediately thought of “The Sailor’s Hornpipe.” As a novice bluegrass banjo player, I always thought that if I could master Bill Keith’s version of it, I could play anything. Unfortunately, while I gave it every effort and did figure out short passages here and there, some things are just not meant to be. Popeye himself said it best: “I yam what I yam!”
Ha. For Bill Keith playing “The Sailor’s Hornpipe,” go here.
Another reader:
My Bleak House is Musil’s Man without Qualities. I have been toting that around the world with me for decades, moving forward in the book until sheer fatigue overwhelms my ability to persevere. I describe it as a book I want to have read, rather than a book I want to read. . . .
A story: My first boss, Robert K. Dwyer, was the chief prosecutor of James Earl Ray for the assassination of Dr. King. Judge, as I called him (no one else did), toted Bleak House around with him for the better part of 50 years and constantly made reference to “that book I’m reading.” Never managed to finish it. “Best book I’ve ever read,” he’d say, nonetheless. I asked him, “Why not finish it then?” He replied, “I don’t really like it.” You had to know him, I suppose.
Wish I had!
A reader writes,
In 1977 (or ’78?), at Warren Woods High School in Warren, Mich., I was forced to read all of Les Misérables. I found it dreadful. My classmates and I were merciless in our dislike and ridicule of said novel. Our teacher, Mrs. Krot, was unable to officially support our opinion. But I suspect she sympathized.
Fast forward. Someone wrote some musical and all the neighbors are talking about how great the story is. I have never brought myself to see the musical or to re-read the novel. Or An American Tragedy, which has never become a musical.
Ah, Dreiser! In college, I read Sister Carrie (and liked it). But have never tried An American Tragedy. (I can’t say that the latter book has become a musical. But I can say it became an opera — by Tobias Picker, with a libretto by Gene Scheer. I reviewed its premiere, in 2005: here.)
A reader writes,
Hi, Jay. Middlemarch occupies the same place in my life as Bleak House does in yours. A dog-eared paperback sits reproachfully on my shelf.
Another reader:
I, too, have struggled with Bleak House, but I haven’t given up. I will soon turn 71, which means it would be prudent for me to start the book again if I wish to finish it on this side of the grave.
Another tome of 19th-century English literature I have never been able to finish is Middlemarch. While Eliot’s prose is beautiful, at times I find it difficult to decipher.
I will tell you something that those readers did not know: Middlemarch is paired with Bleak House, for me.
In the blogpost I quoted, above, I referred to an essay of mine. Published in April 2020, it’s called “Staggering Cornucopias.” I will quote (again):
In 1994, Harold Bloom came out with his book The Western Canon. At the back, it had appendices, providing for what amounted to a life’s reading. I xeroxed those pages, expecting to keep them with me always, and to march through the lists.
I’ll get started any day now. (No, I won’t.)
One of Bloom’s chapters is “The Canonical Novel.” It focuses on Bleak House and Middlemarch. Forthwith, I went out and bought those two books — good used copies, in hardcover. I seldom bought books in those days, having not very much money. I borrowed them from libraries — as I had The Western Canon (which is why I xeroxed the appendices). But I knew, because Bloom said so, that I had to have Bleak House and Middlemarch.
For the next many years, I carried them with me wherever I went — as I changed addresses and traveled. I started each one, several times. I could never keep going.
Last year, I said to myself, “You’re going to read Bleak House. I don’t care if you like it. You’re going to read it, if it kills you. Every page. Even if it takes a year, or more.” Over about five weeks, I read about 300 pages. I finally gave myself permission to give up. I have no doubt — none — that Bleak House is an immortal masterpiece. I just can’t get with it, somehow.
Responding to my essay — which touches on a lot of other books, too — George F. Will called it my “romp through the meadow of the unread.”
Let’s continue with reader mail:
I could never finish Moby-Dick, even though I very much wanted to and loved Herman Melville, especially “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” But this book became my white whale and I got caught in a wide net of symbolic details and thematic statements that sank me.
Another reader:
Moby-Dick is my Bleak House. I have started it several times over the years, but can’t get past the first few pages. I have read countless books, fiction and non-fiction. I read two or three books a week. That whale of a tale is just not for me.
Another reader has given me a little list. His “best book ever”? Moby-Dick. Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks.
A reader writes,
I recall reading Absalom, Absalom! and finding it interesting enough to move on to The Sound and the Fury, which on finishing I put down, muttering, “That’s quite enough Faulkner for the rest of my life.” Your mileage may vary, etc.
A different reader:
For me it’s Crime and Punishment. I have tried three or four times to get to the end with no success (I assume there is punishment at the end). Too much whining. My college literature professor (Wallace Gray, Columbia) invited our class to switch to The Brothers Karamazov. What a homerun that change was to me. In my opinion, The Brothers Karamazov is second only to Anna Karenina in the Russian-novel world.
Another:
So far, to my discredit, I have failed to get through Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson and Crime and Punishment. The former, too tedious; the latter, too depressing.
(I could never persevere in Crime and Punishment either. I owned a copy of the book whose back cover said something like, “By consensus, the most exciting novel ever written.” It may be. But . . .) (The Magic Mountain, I’m afraid, is another of my unclimbables.)
A reader writes,
My Bleak House is War and Peace. As a slightly pretentious teenager (and by “slightly” I mean “very”) with delusions of literary grandeur, I thought I’d tackle it. For me, War and Peace was a stand-in for “really long, tough-to-finish novel,” and I thought reading it would be impressive. (“To whom?” is a good question.) Mind you, I’d read Churchill’s six-volume history of World War II at 16 or so and his page count far exceeds Tolstoy’s. I made it through about 20 percent of War and Peace before I gave up.
Mid-twenties, I picked it up for a long trip and started it again. I got a little farther into it, but stopped. I tried one more time in my thirties, thinking I’d spend a few years, just reading a little at a time. I never decided to stop, just never went back after getting about halfway through.
For a long time, I thought an unfinished novel was a crime. At some point, I made my peace with unfinished books. About halfway through Interview with a Vampire, I realized I really didn’t care what happened to any of the characters and put it down.
The courage to put down a book. It’s necessary. (In my case, it’s not exactly courage, more like resignation.)
One mo’:
Paradise Lost. I struggle with poetry yet love The Divine Comedy and much else. I’ve tried audio courses and guides and audiobooks. Still I find Milton unreadable.
You know what (the aforementioned) Dr. Johnson said about Milton’s masterpiece: “No man has ever wished it longer.”
Paradise Lost may be one of those works you can’t read on your own exactly — you need the guidance of a teacher (preferably a very good one). I remember trying to read The Red and the Black some years ago. I flailed and failed. A learned friend consoled me: “You really need a teacher for that book.” Maybe he was being kind.
In any case, I’ve kept you long enough, with this column. You’ve got books to get back to. Thank you to all my readers and correspondents.
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