Loving a book so much you can't finish it?
Has that happened to anyone else?
I was reading Dorothy Dunnett's "King Hereafter" (which is a novel that posits the historical underpinnings of Macbeth) and I have a 100 or so pages to go and I have put it away and I cannot make myself pick it up.
It's not that I don't love it, or care for the characters, or lost interest. On the contrary. Just like in Lymond, you read for the first 10 or so pages and while the details of the 11th century Orkney and Norse society are interesting, you find the lead character rather boring and with no inner life (Dunnett rarely goes into her leads' heads). And then, it's like a switch flips on, and you just fall in love with the book and Thorfinn, so deep that you feel hurt when he does.
I love his intelligence, quiet fierceness, and dead pan humor. I love his deep love for Groa (who is one of the strongest and most intelligent women I've found in fiction). I love the fact that he is so different from the flamboyant, perfectly spoken Lymond (I hate when authors repeat themselves).
And I put the book away and can't read it because I know how it ends and so I stopped reading before things go South. And I can't seem to make myself pick it up. This is ridiculous. This is the equivalent of throwing a reader tantrum, or pretending that in my AU Thorfinn and Groa ruled happily ever after. It's silly, and pointless, and ruins the arc and I can't seem to make myself read it anyway.
But what can I say: just reading this:
"'You are telling me to take to husband the man who will kill you?'
'You say that,' he said, 'as if it cost me nothing. O Befind, whose fair body is the colour of snow; smile at me.'
And from his courage she took courage, and smiled."
makes me bawl. And I don't think I can take it.
Has that happened to anyone else?
P.S. Another wonderful King Hereafter quote:
"He slowed and stood, the sobbing tale of relief in his throat, and found dragged ajar the dangerous
door that led back to the things that were normal and dear."
I was reading Dorothy Dunnett's "King Hereafter" (which is a novel that posits the historical underpinnings of Macbeth) and I have a 100 or so pages to go and I have put it away and I cannot make myself pick it up.
It's not that I don't love it, or care for the characters, or lost interest. On the contrary. Just like in Lymond, you read for the first 10 or so pages and while the details of the 11th century Orkney and Norse society are interesting, you find the lead character rather boring and with no inner life (Dunnett rarely goes into her leads' heads). And then, it's like a switch flips on, and you just fall in love with the book and Thorfinn, so deep that you feel hurt when he does.
I love his intelligence, quiet fierceness, and dead pan humor. I love his deep love for Groa (who is one of the strongest and most intelligent women I've found in fiction). I love the fact that he is so different from the flamboyant, perfectly spoken Lymond (I hate when authors repeat themselves).
And I put the book away and can't read it because I know how it ends and so I stopped reading before things go South. And I can't seem to make myself pick it up. This is ridiculous. This is the equivalent of throwing a reader tantrum, or pretending that in my AU Thorfinn and Groa ruled happily ever after. It's silly, and pointless, and ruins the arc and I can't seem to make myself read it anyway.
But what can I say: just reading this:
"'You are telling me to take to husband the man who will kill you?'
'You say that,' he said, 'as if it cost me nothing. O Befind, whose fair body is the colour of snow; smile at me.'
And from his courage she took courage, and smiled."
makes me bawl. And I don't think I can take it.
Has that happened to anyone else?
P.S. Another wonderful King Hereafter quote:
"He slowed and stood, the sobbing tale of relief in his throat, and found dragged ajar the dangerous
door that led back to the things that were normal and dear."