Despite its long presence in my sidebar, I only just started reading A Hero of Our Time last night, and I should really just clear my mind of all expectations about any book I haven’t read yet because they seem to be wrong more often than not lately. Anyway, I freaking love it. Love. So, this will be a quiet Sunday full of more Russians. Which means I will, as planned, get through some more Russians before starting the newly planned readalong of The Brothers Karamazov chez Dolce Bellezza.
Not much to add beyond that except to announce the winner of my The Waves giveaway. Congratulations to mel u of The Rereading Life. Mel has some good reading plans and I hope The Waves will be an excellent way to combat the “twinkies and red bull” of mediocrity. (Oh, and count me in for that Parade’s End readalong you’re thinking about!) So, send me your mailing address at nicole [at] bibliographing [dot] com and I’ll send some Virginia Woolf your way!
This shared read of The Brothers Karamazov is really shaping up to be something great. Yay Bellezza! Glad to see you reading too.
The thing that puzzles me about the expectations business is why the book in front of the reader does not make the expectation moot.
For many readers, it clearly does not. “I expected X, and got Y, and am unhappy” is a much more common response to a book than I would have guessed, pre-bookblog exposure.
I understand your response – but it really has more to do with why you pick up a book or do not, right? Once you’re reading, you’re reading the book, whatever it is. But this other response – my puzzlement is genuine. I’d like to understand this better.
The loss of those later Lermontov novels in that duel seems pretty tragic, doesn’t it?
Frances—Indeed; and clearly, now that I am on the readalong bandwagon, I can’t get off.
AR—For me, I wouldn’t say so much why I pick up a book as whether or, often, when. Here, if my expectations had been more in line with reality, I would have read Lermontov years ago. It may seem like no great loss, since I’m clearly going around reading plenty of books I expect not to love, but there is still an effect.
But yes; once you’re reading, you’re reading the book, and that’s all you’ve got. I would be puzzled at what you describe too, but I’m not sure it’s what’s happening. Is that not just the way people say, “I thought it would be about something I like, but it is about something I don’t like, and that matters to me in terms of whether I will like a book”? Or, “I thought it would be well executed, but it was not; therefore I am disappointed”? I don’t know. If people really are just unhappy with the unexpected, it seems a shame.
Shame about those later novels too.
I’ll bet you’re right – I’m simply being puzzled by imprecision. I’m missing the code words.
The classic example is Wuthering Heights – the whole “I was told it’s a romance, and it’s not, so I hate it” response. I like what I like, I had thought this was it, but it ain’t. I still find it odd when the book is then blamed. And I would quibble with the last example (as I recently did with Striped Armchair Eva) – that really is a problem with the book, a matter of standards, not with mangled expectations.
I’d love to join in with Karamazov – especially since I think we have similar ambivalences about Dostoevsky – but I just don’t think I have room for a big book like that. Let’s see. Part I is about 150 pages. Part II is the same. Part IV is the long one. Hmm. Maybe this isn’t so unreasonable.
Sure, you’re right, though I think there can be a fine line between “I think the book should have set out to achieve this” and “the book didn’t achieve what it set out to.” I, at least, have a hard time drawing that line myself.
I hope you can do the Karamazov; it’s not like I have “room” for it either…
Nicole-thanks so much for Woolf-I confess it will be my first of her works-I will also be joining in the Karamazov read-along-The Parade’s End Read along will be pretty free based with people reading it at the same time -at their own pace and commenting on each others reviews-there will be no schedule or anything like that-the four parts of the work are each about 200 pages-I am glad you are joining in-