Roots
This book is just about unreadable.
I understand its historical impact and why it might be meaningful to people. And it's not badly written. But I can't read it.
It is 900 pages long. That in and of itself is not a dealbreaker. I read long books. No problem. Also, it has really short chapters. Not only is that not a dealbreaker, it's a bonus--usually. At the end of each short chapter, though, I feel an almost irresistible urge to put the book down and go find something interesting to do. I don't care about Kunta Kinte. I don't care about his family. I even find it hard to care about his struggles on the middle passage and as a slave. Generally, I find such texts fascinating and compelling, but this just left me cold.
I gave up not long after Kunta Kinte reached America and was re-named Toby. I tried to watch the mini-series, hoping it would at least fill out the rest of the plot or make it more interesting so that I could keep reading. No such luck. It's not bad. All-star cast, music by Quincy Jones, etc. But I just could not maintain any interest in it. The most interesting moment was when O. J. Simpson showed up--and that was not because the movie was suddenly any more interesting but solely because I was so freaked out by the presence of O. J. Simpson. So I stopped after the first installment.
I feel bad that I can't read this book (or watch the mini-series), but not so bad that I'm going to keep torturing myself with it. As an achievement of personal genealogical research by Alex Haley, it's pretty cool, but as a literary work, it's incredibly dull and overshadowed by everything else on my reading list thus far.
I understand its historical impact and why it might be meaningful to people. And it's not badly written. But I can't read it.
It is 900 pages long. That in and of itself is not a dealbreaker. I read long books. No problem. Also, it has really short chapters. Not only is that not a dealbreaker, it's a bonus--usually. At the end of each short chapter, though, I feel an almost irresistible urge to put the book down and go find something interesting to do. I don't care about Kunta Kinte. I don't care about his family. I even find it hard to care about his struggles on the middle passage and as a slave. Generally, I find such texts fascinating and compelling, but this just left me cold.
I gave up not long after Kunta Kinte reached America and was re-named Toby. I tried to watch the mini-series, hoping it would at least fill out the rest of the plot or make it more interesting so that I could keep reading. No such luck. It's not bad. All-star cast, music by Quincy Jones, etc. But I just could not maintain any interest in it. The most interesting moment was when O. J. Simpson showed up--and that was not because the movie was suddenly any more interesting but solely because I was so freaked out by the presence of O. J. Simpson. So I stopped after the first installment.
I feel bad that I can't read this book (or watch the mini-series), but not so bad that I'm going to keep torturing myself with it. As an achievement of personal genealogical research by Alex Haley, it's pretty cool, but as a literary work, it's incredibly dull and overshadowed by everything else on my reading list thus far.