Reader's Block

[rhythmaning]

Much has been written about writers’ block; much less about its bastard cousin, reader’s block.

For much of the spring, I suffered from reader’s block. Earlier in the year, I had read prodigiously, ploughing through a batch of Christmas books, voraciously working through Steig Larsson’s “Millenium” trilogy (I liked the characters so much, I was very sad to finish the last book) – I read thousands and thousands of pages.

And then, with the spring, I lost my appetite for books.

I had to give up on two large, weighty paperbacks – Iain Sinclair’s “Downriver” and Luther Blissett’s “Q”. These are the kind of books I expected to enjoy – deep, complex stories. They came well reviewed by people I trust. Life is too short – and there are far too many books – to waste time reading things that I don’t think I’ll enjoy, and I reckoned these would be right up my street.

Alas, no. They are both dense works, and I struggled to wade through them. I tried long journeys; I tried rainy weekends away. In the end, the struggle was just too much, the reward not worth it.

So I read very little. Maybe it was just me, my mood or whatever else was going on at the time. But it seemed pointless to make myself finish these unwieldy volumes.

In the last month, my reading has picked up again: I have read a very interesting (but equally frustrating) analysis of post-punk pop music, Simon Reynold’s “Rip It Up And Start Again”; one of Colin Cotterill’s Laotian coroner series, “Disco for the Departed” (a charming novel, like Alexander McCall Smith with depth); and I’m now reading Gordon Burn’s novelisation of the news, “Born Yesterday” (actually, not so much of a novelisation as a discussion and discursion on the news). All entertaining, lively, and thoughtful.

I’ve no idea if I’m over my reader’s block, but at least I’m enjoying reading again!

***Addendum*** On the back of the couple of comments I've received, I can't help wondering whether my recent absence (or should that be abstinence?) - writer's block of a kind, I guess - from LJ is also coupled with my reader's block. I'll have to think about that...

Comments

[white_hart]

I frequently suffer from reader's block - I blame it at least partly on a degree in English Literature making reading seem like hard work sometimes. I have reached the point now where if a book really isn't grabbing me I put it down and read something else, and if I've tried something twice and not got on with it I decide it just wasn't meant to be.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a pretty good philosophy to me! Though I doubt I'd give many books I don't get on with a second go...

[white_hart]

If a book is well-written and appears to be reasonably interesting, but just isn't grabbing me, I'll usually give it a second try because it might just have been that I wasn't in the right mood for it first time round. Interestingly, if I do bounce off a book twice it's usually in pretty much the same place, and then I do tend to give it up completely.