Can one read too much?

[CrazyyAngel]

Finally I have found a topic worthy enough to throw it into the lions cage (aka the AH) to let it tear apart by you braniacs ... .

Well ... I have just finished reading Dan Brown's "Angels & Demons" and I have expierenced that some of his to-be-tense-increasing moments were completely lost at me, because I had already figured out hundreds of pages earlier what was going to happen.

I do own nearly 600 books and have read well over a 1000 in my life so far. As I read nearly everything I come across, more or less every possible plot / plottwist / charactertwist crossed my path one time or another.

Now here is the question. Is the earlier described experience more an indication of poor writing or an indication that I might have read that much, I can hardly be surprised or fooled anymore?

CA

 

[gauchecritic]

I'd be more likely to guess Mostly the former with bit of the latter.

Some authors are lazy and use trite plot devices and trite plots. Some authors don't know what a device is. Quite a few authors are published because they have been published.

I think what you have probably discovered is that you are reading like an author. I'd say it's almost unnavoidable.

The only solution is to watch movies of books. Especially movies 'based upon' or 'inspired by' short stories. (Usually starring Arnold or Claude) This will not only sap your will to live but, as a useful side-effect, also numb the cognitive abilities thus making you dull to the 'plot twist' or 'surprise' ending.

After 6 months or so you will gladly read 'Of Mice and Men' (again) and not know 'til he does it, that he's going to do it.

If all else fails ask Og.

Gauche

 

[MathGirl]

Hypertrophy of right upper extremity

Dear Crazy Angel,
Your AV would make a wonderful illustration for the "Sons of Onan" epic poems by the DurtGurl group.
MG

 

[CrazyyAngel]

Re: Hypertrophy of right upper extremity

Dear Crazy Angel,
Your AV would make a wonderful illustration for the "Sons of Onan" epic poems by the DurtGurl group.
MG

Well ... at least you dont want to bring out your ping pong paddle

 

[MathGirl]

Re: Re: Hypertrophy of right upper extremity

Well ... at least you dont want to bring out your ping pong paddle

Dear CA,
No, and I don't think I'd want to shake hands unless I was wearing a radiologist's glove.
MG
Ps. Those gloves come up above the elbow, are made a heavy leather and lead lined.

 

[Icingsugar]

I'm not going to say anything about this, because Gauche have already said it.

Oh well, I've already started typing...

Couldn't it also be that, after reading enoug, you actually become jaded enough to ask of more from your reading experience than before. What if I say that you probaly always could figure ot a too transparent plot, but it didn't matter that much 800 books ago?

The screwballs you are looking for are out there. But it takes hard looking, and a little help from other lterature freaks to pinpopint the gems.

 

[Icingsugar]

MG and CA: Your AVs look kinda cute together.

Just wanted to say that.

 

[deliciously_naughty]

I don't think that you can read too much, I think you just have to become more discriminating as you gain experience. I am a true bibliophile (i.e. I would and do buy books before I buy groceries, and often buy store brand to save cash to buy more books) and I have often been dissapointed by a book because of the obvious plot twists, etc. Kinda makes you go "and why don't I have a book deal? I can write a tighter book than this idiot"

However, what I find myself doing is going back to reread my favorite authors, and I'm starting to read the "classics." Don Quixote is next on my list. You could also switch to reading non-fiction to learn more about topics you're not familiar with. Ask your fellow authors for recommendations (or search for the 10 or so threads on this topic from the last 6 months or so).

 

[Guest]

I cannot read enough. I hate that I have to prioritize my reading, that I will never read all I want to read, that I have to pay rent instead of spending it on books, that people who win the lotto never say, "Oh my god I can have a proper library now!"

I regularly buy books twice in error (I have I think 2000 or more, just can't be bothered to order them better). I've paid too much for some books but simply could not help it; I had to have them. I've bought some books for just one illustration or for the preface. Sometimes one book will lead to the purchase of dozens (the book on the last queen of Romania that got me going as a Russophile).

I keep several books going at once and read several a week. If I go anywhere without a book I am forlorn and feel as if I'd forgotten to wear knickers.

I am not a collector, I am not into first editions and all that crap. I just love books as things that give me so much pleasure. I love the smell of them, the feel of them, the look. I can identify some of my books by those qualities, they are like my favorite lovers, I cannot forget them to save my life.

Perdita

 

[ffreak]

Originally Posted by Thomas Jefferson:
I cannot live without books.

Me either.

There is not a room in my house without books on shelves, tables, the floor - even cantilevered on the swaying shelves in real book cases. I have First Editions (which are prizes that I rarely buy from any chain - many are signed by the author - which is a wonderful excuse to say hello and thank you for the wonderful read).

I could not see until I was seven years old. I have devoured every written word I could find since then. Everyone has a story (or many stories) in them. I want to read and hear as many as I can.

I read while I eat, I read while I ride (not if I'm driving - just at the stop lights. There's all these helpful people behind me that will be happy to let me know when the light changes). I read when I can't sleep, I read when I am waiting for someone.

There are only two times I can think of that I do not read;
Making Love
Writing (often about making love)

 

[Jenny _S]

Ffreak,
Occasionally I look at my bookshelf and say to myself, "I've read all that?" But then I remember teaching sci-fi at the university and having to read 100 to fine 1 worth while.

Readers make good writers.

 

[sailorm72003]

As far as I'm concerned, it's impossible to read too much. I love books, I read all the time. I treasure them, build shelves for them, find I still have more books than can fit on shelves, so I buy more books to keep the stacked ones company.

The kids started counting just the shelved books one day, when my wife was saying I had too many. They gave up after 1800, and I didn't have the heart to tell them that they had missed the ones in the family room.

Sailor

 

[ffreak]

OH, Dear Jenny - You taught Sci-Fi at the University? I'm in love.

Did you divide Heinlein into pre and post tumor (also known as juvenile and adult)?

Herbert and the royal biographer as narrator?

Dick and man's failure to resist the machine?

(disclaimer: that last one was not intended as innuendo)

 

[Chicklet]

Angels&Demons question

I let a friend borrow it before I read it and he hasn't given it back but told me it wasn't very good- is it?

 

[CrazyyAngel]

I cannot read enough. I hate that I have to prioritize my reading, that I will never read all I want to read, that I have to pay rent instead of spending it on books, that people who win the lotto never say, "Oh my god I can have a proper library now!"

I am in Love ... do you want to marry me

It is the same with me ... Whenever I look at amazon or whenever I am in the bookstore I think "Why isnt there enough time to read them all". My dream is to win the lottery, get a 18wheeler and go to the storehouse of one of our whole salers and get every book I want. Then go to a small island and just read them all ... *sigh*

There is nothing better then enough time and a book, you can't put down. Well ... sex maybe is better, but anyway .

I let a friend borrow it before I read it and he hasn't given it back but told me it wasn't very good- is it?

Well as for Angels and Demons ... it is a good book. I have read it in under three days, and thats quite something, considering I have read the original version. It is thrilling with a good story. CERN develops antimatter in a large enough quantity to destroy a whole city. An ancient brotherhood, the Illuminati, wants to use that to destroy there greatest enemy.

But like I said, some of those thrilling moments were lost on me. I am a big Sci-Fi Fan in general, an Star Trek Fan in particular, so that whole antimatter thingy was nothing new for me.

Some things were made too obvious. You just had to get the clue. And some were so obvious, they couldn't be the clue.

In the end it was a bit to religious for my taste. But overall it is a good book and a good read.

CA

 

[oggbashan]

You can never read too much.

Sir Francis Bacon said it better than I can:

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few are to be chewed and digested."

My personal library is about 5000 books and there is the shop stock which I can read at any time.

I treat a book as I would treat a new acquaintance. I find out something about them and then adapt my approach to them to suit their personality.

If I am reading an adventure novel I try to suspend disbelief and my critical literary sense. Does the book work as an entertainment? If not I discard it = try to sell it in the shop.

If I am reading a "classic" I try to read it as it was intended to be read first; then I look deeper. E.g I try to read Shakespeare as a play first, then later go back to look at the language and structure and knowledge of the human condition.

I used to have a book published in the 1940s which listed all the books that an English "gentleman" should have read. There were 2000 titles starting with the Greeks and Romans and including a fair selection of foreign authors - Cervantes, Moliere, Goethe, Dante. It was a good guide up to about 1900 and then the "modern" authors were flawed. Who now reads Walter Pater?

I haven't read all 2000 yet.

Then I found another book which listed all the topics an educated citizen of the USA should know about from Captain John Smith, Benedict Arnold, Wooden Nickels,"The Noble Experiment", TVA, The Literary Guild, The Bay of Pigs, Watergate etc (and what not to do with a cigar). The list was about 2000 topics long and I was surprised how many I didn't need to look up.

Both books made me despair about modern schools in the UK. Most of the students would have no idea that such lists were possible.

Og

 

[ffreak]

What about the Prince? Is he only concerned with the Queen's English and not about her subject's education? Shocking!

 

[The_Fool]

However, what I find myself doing is going back to reread my favorite authors, and I'm starting to read the "classics." Don Quixote is next on my list...

I'll loan you mine, but you have to promise to give it back. Collector's edition with illustrations by Salvadore Dali...

 

[oggbashan]

I'll loan you mine, but you have to promise to give it back. Collector's edition with illustrations by Salvadore Dali...

My Don Quixote is a 19th century one with 1000 illustrations by Gustav Dore. The pictures keep distracting me from the text. Dore's illustrations make me almost accept that "a picture is worth a thousand words".

My wife and I bought it six weeks after we married. It was our first "purchase" together. What it cost is now irrelevant but we lived on bread and cheese for the rest of the month until payday.

Og

 

[Guest]

How utterly romantic, Ogg. I envy your wife.

sincerely, Perdita