MY PIECE last Sunday was about the charming Icelandic tradition of giving each other books on Christmas Eve and then spending the night reading, and how we would do well to adopt this custom.
In line with this thought is today’s topic—books we began reading but haven’t finished for one reason or another. I started David Foster Williams’ telephone-directory-thick Infinite Jest, but my mistake was reading a physical book. I read in bed, so after that 1,079 page tome fell on my face one night, I gave up. It hurt my nose, and the denseness of DFW’s prose and the endless footnotes hurt my brain. I did better with Murakami’s voluminous IQ84—I learned my lesson and read that as an e-book.
I’ve also begun and halted the Russian writers—Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy—midstream; too depressing, with the snow, cold, guilt, coarse black bread, and cruel winters.
But one man’s junk is another man’s collectible item, so if there are books in your shelf that you don’t intend to read, why not pass them along as part of your holiday booksgiving?
Here are some books that might be ‘tl:dr’ (too long, didn’t read) or unwieldy for some, but could bring inspiration or an epiphany to others:
• Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged: Rand’s philosophy of objectivism explained in a fictional framework over a great many pages. It’s her longest work, and is what made capitalism, reason, and individualism dirty words. Read to uncover the mindset that brought about the present Western model of society. Pro tip: Try the Cliff’s Notes version.
• Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love: Gilbert’s a good writer, but this is an entitled, privileged account of how she deals with relationship problems. Travel to Italy and India and wherever to soothe a broken heart? It’s nice to be rich! ‘Kaw na, bes. Pro tip: Don’t give it a critical read, and you’ll find it enjoyable as a travelogue and memoir—and as an illustration of individualism at work.
• Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See: I flipped through a few pages and it didn’t draw me in. It was a bestseller this year, and might be of interest to those who like stories set in wartime. Pro tip: Treat it as an ‘alternative universe’ historical.
• David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas: This is six nested stories, half of it told in a certain order, and the rest told in reverse order. The prose is dense, thick, and full of European cultural and historical references. I lost my way sometime into the third story. Pro tip: Study it for its form and structure. Some readers say it moves faster in the second half.
• Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo: I know a lot of us still don’t know what the heck happened in those two novels even if we spent a year studying each. For some, the heavy Filipino translations used in schools could have been mentally cumbersome. Pro tip: Read the English translations by Leon Ma. Guerrero or Harold Augenbraum (Penguin Classics). The food scenes are rendered so realistically, you’ll get hungry while reading. “Ang biya para sa escabeche!”
• Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time: The eminent physicist’s attempt at bringing the wonders of the universe to the layman’s mind. It’s about, uh, science. And, er, science pa more. Pro tip: Read it slowly. No need to rush. The universe has been there for billions of years, after all, and will continue to exist whether or not we understand how it works.
• James Joyce’s Ulysses: One of those books you’d like to be able to say you’ve read because of the street cred you’ll get among bibliophiles. But if you don’t want to wade through a storm surge of alliterative made-up words, don’t bother. Pro tip: Skim through a few chapters to get a feel of the language, then Google the synopsis.
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude: Magic realism is hard to wrap your head around. And the latinisms are unfamiliar to most. Reading this book is like diving into a Jello shot swimming pool: it’s dense, thick, and difficult to get through. Pro tip: A Jello shot might be hard to swallow at first, but then it goes down sweet and makes you tipsy, just like this book makes you intoxicated with its lush, heady, tropical language.
• JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: Why read the book when you’ve already watched the movie trilogy? And the archaic, pseudo-mythical language is hard to follow. Pro tip: Start with The Hobbit—it’s written in an easier-to-follow style, like for young adults. Then enter LOTR and savor it; it’s another world, another time. Worth it!
• JK Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy: Released not long after the last Harry Potter book, a lot of readers dissed this one because it was not Harry Potter. It was Rowling’s first attempt to write about the real world. I found its start rather confusing, and put it down when the imagery became littered with cigarette butts, waste paper in dank puddles, and characters mouthing the F word. Not that I have any objection to those, but let’s just say JKR didn’t handle this material as deftly as she did her subsequent Cormoran Strike detective novels. Pro tip: You’re on your own with this one, man.
So for last-minute gifts, look through your shelves for books you’re minded to toss—or, dust them off, give them another skim, and just maybe, you’ll sit with them this Christmas and give them another chance to entertain and inform you.
A very happy Christmas to you and your families, and may the next year be good for us all!
Dr. Ortuoste is a California-based writer. Follow her on Facebook: Jenny Ortuoste, Twitter: @jennyortuoste, Instagram: @jensdecember
