On Books-Why Did I Stop Reading This Book?

The beauty of having an antilibrary, is that you will always have the books that you have stopped reading available to you to reconsider your decision. The concept of the antilibrary came from Umberto Eco the symbiotics scholar, as well as the author of the Name of the Rose and various other novels. He is well known for having a library of over 30,000 volumes.

Walk through Umberto Eco's Library

The antilibrary is a personal library consisting of far more books that has not been read than books that has been read. It is a point of pride and it is also a point of pragmatism.  The point of pride comes from the owner’s ability to distinguish between the reality that there is more knowledge that the owner does NOT know, because there are books that they have not read, than there are knowledge that owner does know. The point of pragmatism comes from the knowledge that the reader has an abundance of references available at their disposal to indulge their curiosity whenever they wish, even when they are not on the world wide web. Most people do not have antilibraries of course, because the habit can be expensive, the books take up a lot of space, and partly because many people are under the delusion that showing the extent of their knowledge is more important and impressive than showing the extent of their ignorance.

I am proud that I have an antilibrary, not to the extent of Eco, but I do have a collection of books that I am proud of; the majority of the books I own I have not finished reading, although I have started reading them at least once. There was a time that I felt guilty about the untapped investments in paper, but I stopped feeling guilty when I realized that I would one day go back to read the books. Ideally, I thought that I should read every new book that I bought; the reality, of course, is that I buy more books than I can read at one time, and I never not buy books because I have unread books on my shelves;  those books that I have not read accumulates exponentially with each visit to the bookstore or, with each visit to a bookstore website.

This essay is about those books that I have left behind but have returned to after a hiatus to finish and the reason for these respites from those books.

I usually give up on a book because it  just did not hold my interest, I found the slog of reading discouraging, I became easily distracted as I am reading, I disliked the writing, or I found the subject matter not as engrossing as I had imagined. There are many books that I had given up reading, as my basement full of books will attest. There are times, quite often actually, that I will find a treasure trove of unread books as I am rummaging through my basement. I will pause in my search for whatever it was that I was searching and think: “I forgot I had that”, or “that sounds interesting”.  It is like opening presents on Christmas morning, there are as many presents as there are forgotten books.

After the initial delight of discovery, I would inevitably ponder the reasons for abandoning a book. I would search my memory for the reason: was it the writing? Was it the subject? Was it the organization? What was the reason for my abandoning a book that had once held my interest long enough to pay for it, invest time and energy in initially devouring it?

One book that I can recall which followed that fate is a book that had become one of my favorites. The  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, a title that was thrown around in late night college dorm room bull sessions for many decades. I have started that book numerous times and never got traction with the story. The beginning was rather slow, and the narrative really did not gain momentum for many pages. The characters were not interesting, and the pace of the initial pages were hardly engrossing. I had heard once that one needs to give a book 50 to 100 pages, if one still cannot get any traction then it is time to stop reading. I am not sure I agree with that assessment, but I soldiered through the beginning a few times and left it alone for extended periods of time. The last time I started the book, I felt like I flew through the initial pages, as the words had become familiar since I had read them so many times previously, that momentum carried me to the point where Pirsig introduced Phaedrus, and that was when I got hooked. As it became clear that when Pirsig spoke of Phaedrus, he was speaking of himself, that was when the book opened for me, as the reading experience became an exercise in mind expansion, without the chemical aids.  It is still one of my favorite books.

Another book that is on my pantheon of great books but did not hold my interest in my first few forays into its pages was Magister Ludi by Herman Hesse, it is also known as The Glass Bead Game. This book goes back to my callow youth, Hermann Hesse was the author that adolescent boys read because it was deep and ostentatiously cerebral. We were all trying to out deep each other so Hesse was the means to do it. I had started the Magister Ludi a few times without the story grabbing my attention, the fact that it was in a mythical Germanic setting that did not have any indication of identifiable time frame made  it intriguing but also confusing. I had devoured Siddartha, Narcissus and Goldmund, and Steppenwolf in short order, but that fact  made no difference in my ability to be interested.  I made numerous attempts without any success.  It was not until I left the book alone for a number of years before returning to it that I was able to not only finish the book but be completely absorbed into the cloistered intellectual world of Castalia. I  eventually  reread this book a few times because it made such an impact on me.

So, what was the problem the first few times? Was it the writing? Was it the subject? Was it the organization of the narrative?

It was none of those things.

The truth of the matter is that I was not ready to read those books, my maturity level, my intellectual depth, my ability to decipher, analyze, and integrate all that was presented to my eyes by the author were not developed enough to appreciate the work. It was not that the book was not good enough to appeal to my mind, it was that my mind was not good enough to respond to the appeal. My maturity,  intellectual and emotional maturity, was not ready to understand what the author was trying to tell me.

As we age, we will, I hope, be able to integrate all of our life experiences and knowledge into our continuously evolving intellect; and as our intellect evolve, we should be able to understand ever more complex concepts in addition to be growing emotionally to be more accepting of ideas that were once out of the ordinary, foreign, and perhaps even repulsive to our provincial mindsets. The ability to return to the books that had stopped us in our tracks is certainly a sign that our opinions and intellectual depth are growing and evolving along with our life experiences.

I now look at my cluttered basement with a newfound appreciation. The boxes of unread books become the object of my attention just as the shelves of the finest bookstores without having to leave the house. I have also gained an appreciation for my young and callow self for having the foresight, taste, and judgement to have bought these books in the first place, well before he was able to appreciate the richness of his choices.

This idea is not new, The New York Times Sunday Book Review dedicates a column to authors’ reading habits, the By the Book column. One of the questions is: which book should not be read until after the reader turns 40. It is new to me however, since I had not thought about it until recently.

Unfortunately, not all books fall into this category, I find that my younger choices in books are a mixed bag. I had a tendency to follow the trend and I bought many books that had not withstood the test of time, but that too is a lesson itself.

Ultimately, the understanding that I just was not ready for the book has taken the guilt, impatience, and self-loathing out of my emotional response to seeing all those books in my basement and made me achieve equanimity, at least in that regard.