When Is It Okay to Not Finish a Book?
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Not long ago, one of my colleagues told me about a rule her friend’s mother’s book club follows, and I’ve been sharing it with friends when they admit that they’re struggling through this or that beloved title: Subtract your age from 100, and you’ll end up with the number of pages you need to read before dropping a book. Only 20 years old? You’ll need to read 80 pages before you can move on. But if you’re 90, you need to read only 10. By that age, you’ve earned the right not to spend a second of your time on something that doesn’t bring you joy.
The article links to this:
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It's rare for me to not finish a book, and I think the "take your age and ..." thinking is a bit off.
But, the older I get, the more often I find myself saying, "Ah, fuck it" particularly with fiction.
I recently finished "Along Came a Spider," the first of Patterson's crime books. It was a disappointment. So much so that I'll not investigate him any more. Almost thought of giving up, but I wanted to see what all the hype about him was. Never found it.
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Agreed, but I don't need a formula. Often for me I find the writer does not pull me into the story. In that case it's adios, book. I should have applied that rule to watching Horizon.
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Agreed, but I don't need a formula. Often for me I find the writer does not pull me into the story. In that case it's adios, book. I should have applied that rule to watching Horizon.
@Mik said in When Is It Okay to Not Finish a Book?:
I should have applied that rule to watching Horizon.
That bad, eh?
ETA: The reviews are...mixed.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=costner+horizon+reviews&t=osx&ia=web
Chapter 1 of Horizon premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which seemed like a good omen. Surely this swank, pomp-and-circumstance festival would only premiere a film of quality—it could be a little hokey, but there’s nothing wrong with that if done well. But unfortunately, Horizon is far from stately, or even coherent. A jumble of clichéd plots rendered in washed-out color (and washed-out performances), Horizon may rival Megalopolis as the biggest American boondoggle at this year’s Cannes. Sure, what appears disorderly may turn out to be genius by the time we’ve seen the end of the project—but ten hours is an awfully long time to wait to find out.
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Strangely, I find myself anticipating the second installment. I guess that's my respect for Kostner's story telling ability.
A three-hour movie to only set the scene and poorly introduce the characters seems excessive. He should have taken a page from Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven and had text doing a quick introduction and back story as the characters appeared. The only character I know the full name of is his.
