I've read it twice before, and any time I'm reading something for the third time, you can be sure I enjoyed it the first two times.
I picked it up because I was looking for something that I knew I would enjoy after trying to slog through "Beloved" by Toni Morrison. I got through about 60 pages of that one before I gave up on it. I wanted to read "Beloved" because i had been hearing so much about it during the recent book-banning controversies in Texas and elsewhere. I kept hearing brief two-sentence synopses of "Beloved" and it sounded interesting.
I went to Barnes and Nobel and one of the clerks there started gushing about it. And then after I bought it and started trying tediously to slog through it, one of the waitresses at a local restaurant saw me reading it and started gushing about how good it is too.
Problem is, there is something about Toni Morrison's writing style that just doesn't agree with me. Trying to understand what the hell she was talking about just kept me scratching my head. After slogging through the aforementioned first 60 or so pages, I was completely bewildered, lost, confused. I just simply did not understand what was going on. What's more important, I was not looking forward to the next time I would be sitting down and reading some more of "Beloved" -- and that is when I always give up on one that is just not grabbing me.
I will provide an example. Near the end of the first chapter, on page 21 of the paperback copy I bought, there is this selection of incomprehensibility:
"It took him (Paul D) a while to realize that his legs were not shaking because of worry, but because the floorboards were and the grinding, shoving floor was only part of it. The house itself was pitching. Sethe slid to the floor and struggled to get back into her dress. While down on all fours, as though she were holding her house down on the ground, Denver burst from the keeping room, terror in her eyes, a vague smile on her lips."
What the hell was going on here? Was it an earthquake? But this was Ohio in 1873. They didn't have earthquakes there then. Was it a tornado? If it was a tornado, it sure wasn't described in a way that would make that clear. Could somebody who has read this novel and loves it as much as the Barnes and Noble Clerk and the restaurant waitress please decipher this incomprehensible passage for me?
A couple of paragraphs later, the quaking stopped, but the incomprehensibility continues:
"Sethe was still crouched next to the stove, clutching her salvaged shoes to her chest. The three of them, Sethe, Denver, and Paul D., breathed to the same beat, like one tired person. Another breathing was just as tired."
What does that last sentence mean? I have no idea. Whom is it referring to?
I could give many more examples. The whole first 60-some bewildering pages of this incomprehensible novel were filled with confusing passages like this one, and that's why I just finally gave up on it. And picked up one I KNOW I can understand and enjoy.
P.S. -- What does "This discussion thread is pinned" mean?
-- Ron
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