I may have finally beaten this book!

[telophase]

I am now—on my fourth attempt—farther than I have ever been in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. 70% of the way trhough, 30% to go! Considering that I never made it past 40% or so in the three previous attempts, I think that's pretty good! I may defeat this book yet!

Note that I finally gave up and bought the ebook version - I think part of my problem in reading before was that it was so damn inconvenient to try to read that enormous doorstop of a book. I had to prop it on a pillow in my lap.

And on a completely different note, when watching my semi-nocturnal cats sleep during the day, I am occasionally seized with the question: when they try to sleep at night, do they ever have the thought "It's too dark to sleep!"

Comments

[torachan]

The only way I made it through was to give up forcing myself to read the footnotes, which I found to be overwhelmingly boring. I wish I'd had an ebook of it, though! That and House of Leaves.

[telophase]

I love the footnotes! At times, more than the story. XD

[viridian5.livejournal.com]

In my case it was that the book never became interesting and I never latched on to any of the characters. I eventually finished it, but it was a struggle.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I never latched on to any of the characters, which was part of the reason I had a hard time getting past 40%. But the story itself was interesting enough that I've wondered for years how it all came out, and dragged that doorstop of a book with me through three moves. I'm about to find out!

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

I've gotten to the point that, if I try to get into it and just can't, I don't waste my time. There's too many books out there I'll enjoy and too little time to read them for me to spend time on the books I dislike.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

The problem was that I did like it enough to want to know how it all came out. I just physically couldn't read it. Well, not just that--as I mention in a comment above, I didn't latch on to any of the characters, which is what usually gets me trhough book, but the story itself caught my attention enough that I didn't want to just go spoil myself on it somewhere instead of reading it.

[marith.livejournal.com]

I'm not the only one! The book is so awesome and I admire it so much and I can't carry it around with me, and keep getting stuck in it.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I finished it at lunch, yay! It took electronic format to make it work: only what, eight years?

Now I have to think about getting The Name of the Wind in ebook format. Maybe I'll actually finish it!

[viridian5.livejournal.com]

...another book I struggled to finish! I found 95% of the innkeeper segments to be a slog, though things pick up once the narrative is back in the past.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I never got far enough in to figure out if I liked parts better than others. The inability to put the book in my purse meant it was far easier to put down and not pick back up. But I've carried it around through four moves because I fully *intend* to read it, so I might as well see if the ebook version will do it for me. :)

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I think cats are more like 'hey, there's a place to sleep, let's sleep.'

[fuchsoid.livejournal.com]

I had the same problems with it. Even the paperback was unwieldy, especially if you read mostly in bed and on the bus to work (that thing is heavy.