Comments on: Sunday Salon and giveaway winner

By: Mel u

Mel u — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:07:50 +0000

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-

By: nicole

nicole — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:53:53 +0000

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…

By: Amateur Reader

Amateur Reader — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:29:28 +0000

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.

By: nicole

nicole — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:40:03 +0000

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.

By: Amateur Reader

Amateur Reader — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:39:50 +0000

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?

By: Frances

Frances — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:36:44 +0000

This shared read of The Brothers Karamazov is really shaping up to be something great. Yay Bellezza! Glad to see you reading too.