
Why Finish Books? - cbrauchli
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/mar/13/why-finish-books/
======
devindotcom
I don't agree with this line of thinking, that the concept of the art in
question lies entirely with the reader or viewer. If a piece of art (i.e. a
book or painting) is conceived as a whole and executed as a whole, then
finishing it is necessary to understanding and appreciating that piece of art.

If you are not enjoying a book, feel free to put it down. I have many times.
But I don't pretend that I have formed a complete and valid judgment. I
forfeit that when I fail to comprehend the work as a whole.

As for whether endings are "necessary" when you have enjoyed a book, it
depends on how necessary the author intended it to be, not on whether (as the
author was rightly, in my opinion, angered by) the reader felt he was "done."
It's a bit like knocking the wings off a statue because you think it looks
better that way. What you think looks better isn't the point. The statue was
created that way because that's the way the creator wanted it created.

Personally, I think it is critical to read every word as the author intended.
Otherwise you are appointing yourself as editor over their artistic
imagination. You are in charge of your own time and enjoyment, but not the
structure and content of their work.

~~~
Retric
The single most important book in my life is one I did not finish reading.

As a teenager I spend a few weeks reading Ivan Hortan's beginning C++ in
depth. But, I skipped the last few hundred pages focused on the STL. I wanted
to know the ins and outs of the language, but after that I had what I wanted
and I moved on. And considering it's been 15 years and I have never seen a
reason to go back and read that section or even write much C++ it was probably
a wise choice.

Now you could argue that different rules apply to fiction, but the choice is
the same. Do I risk continuing or should I quit and try something else and
it's the authors job to convince you that the rest of the journey is still
worth it. Feeling you can only judge what you finish is just the sunk cost
fallacy in another form, they failed and it's ok to call them on it.

~~~
devindotcom
As mentioned in the other reply, "For reference works, or almost any type of
nonfiction these days, nonlinear consumption makes a lot of sense." So for
your engagement with Hortan's C++, it makes sense that you would take what you
needed and not what you didn't.

But yes, I would argue that different rules apply to fiction. Completion is an
essential part of the process. If you don't like the book, or don't want to
finish, by all means don't finish! I've quit books for a number of reasons. If
the book isn't holding your interest, that's - well, to say it's the author's
fault is perhaps assigning blame where blame doesn't apply, but rather say
that the fault is not yours. It's the job of the book to entertain, and while
it may entertain some, it doesn't for you. You can put a book down in good
conscience, certainly. But I disagree with the author's idea that finishing a
book is purely optional.

------
prof_hobart
Appropriately enough, I read about half his article, thought "this is quite
interesting, but I think I've got the message" and then stopped reading any
more.

------
kalid
A neat idea I've heard on this topic:

Suppose you read 20 books a year. With 50 years of life, that's 1000 more
books in your lifetime. (Or 2000, or 5000).

Why waste a slot on a book that isn't useful? Many books, esp. modern non-
fiction, are needlessly padded to fill a length requirement (since a 20-page
"book" can't be taken seriously).

------
Abomonog
I think the answer for this is different for fiction and non-fiction. If I
don't finish a non-fiction book, I still sometimes consider it "read", if I
have gotten the gest of it. This is especially true if the author goes into
more detail towards the end of the book after making their point. Non-
completed fiction books I usually don't recommend to friends.

~~~
astrofinch
Am I the only one who finds popular nonfiction books bloated? So often it
seems like the core ideas could've been expressed in one or two insightful
blog posts.

~~~
kalid
I just wrote a comment on the same! I completely agree. I feel there's a
pressure to fill some artificial page count requirement.

I read "The Evolution of Cooperation" and it honestly could have been done in
30 pages. Instead, I foolishly suffered through 215 of them.

~~~
Drbble
Hence the executive summary industry for biz books.

------
joeyh
Ah, the vindication of Neal Stephenson! :)

Also: It's been a long time since I read Godel Escher Bach, so I cannot trust
this for sure, but at the time I got the feeling there were hints that the
book as such ended before the last page, the remainder was just there as
filler.

~~~
pacaro
Neal Stephenson might even have been more effective in some of his novels (I'm
looking at you "Diamond Age" - a personal favourite nonetheless) if they had
just stopped a chapter or so before the end.

I vote more for "What Happens Next" and less for the "Hollywood Ending".

Note: in keeping with the theme of the article, I didn't read the second
half..

------
ChrisLTD
_"Or are there occasions when we might choose to leave off a book before the
end, or even only half way through, and nevertheless feel that it was good,
even excellent, that we were glad we read what we read, but don’t feel the
need to finish it?"_

I finish most books I start, but I choose what to read very carefully.
However, I stop playing video games partially through all the time and feel
little to no remorse over not finishing them.

~~~
byproxy
I've felt this way playing Civilization V, which I recently picked up during
the Steam sale. I played a campaign and felt that I got all there was to be
had out of the game. Though, I am ignorant of many of the core mechanics and
I'm sure it's a much deeper game than I'm giving credit for. I started a new
campaign (to feel that I'm getting my money's worth), and still managed to
sink a few hours into that, however.

------
drostie
I remember cheating on Umberto Eco's _Foucault's Pendulum_. If you've never
read the book, it's spent in double and triple flashbacks: "To understand
where I am now, I must tell you about that night in the observatory. // There
I was, cowering in a telescope, and I thought back on all that had come
before, especially the job as an editor that I used to have. // While I worked
as a publisher I remembered how I first met Jacopo Belbo...". I suppose we
would describe it as a stack data structure, you keep pushing a new "present"
onto the end of the existing one.

So here's how I cheated. At one point the main character suddenly takes a trip
off to Brazil, and I thought, "man, this is getting ridiculous. I bet if I
just skip ahead to whenever he comes back from Brazil, I won't have missed
much." It turns out that while I had missed some important things, like a new
girlfriend who becomes a major player in the story, I saw enough of them
afterwards to conjecture about what had happened in Brazil.

What's more interesting to me is the set of books that I keep returning to. I
have probably read Zelazny's _Great Book of Amber_ (which is itself 10 novels)
five or six times in my life, maybe more. It just captures me and takes me on
a ride, each time.

~~~
shriphani
There are very few books that pull off these mini-stories. I found the Arabian
Nights (unabridged Burton version) to pull this off with amazing elegance. The
characters usually use the mini-stories for some contrived example but the
stories are very short, quick and on message and together the arabian nights
is a solid read.

------
khyryk
50 pages into a rather short novel may be substantial enough; 50 pages of War
and Peace only scratch the surface. I wasn't hooked in the first 50 pages of
W&P, but I came to enjoy the book immensely in a few hundred.

I'm already saving plenty of time by picking what I read carefully.

------
DrStalker
Moving from paper books to a kindle means my tolerance for poor quality
writing has dropped massively. Instead of a few books waiting to be read and
the need to hunt around bookstores for replacements I've got a dozen books I
intend to read already at my fingertips and millions more a few minutes away
online.

If I decide a book is not worth continuing (even if I spent money for it
because the free sample was inconclusive) then I won't continue it. I'm too
time poor to waste my life on bad books.

------
MikeOnFire
I think the answer for this is different for fiction and non-fiction. If I
don't finish a non-fiction book, I still sometimes consider it "read", if I
have gotten the gest of it. This is especially true if the author goes into
more detail towards the end of the book after making their point. Non-
completed fiction books I usually don't recommend to friends.

------
sliverstorm
Perhaps not an argument for _finishing_ all books, but I personally will read
quite deep into books I am not enjoying in a bid to not miss something good.
For as many books I have hated the entire way through (or put down partway
through), I have read at least twice as many that I came to love as late as
1/3 of the way through.

------
johnwatson11218
Case in point, I picked up a novel by Thomas Pynchon when the Borders stores
were closing down. I read about a third of it and thought 'OK I get it, I
understand this guy's style'. If I had more time I could see myself enjoying
the entire thing. Instead I sold it at a used book store last weekend.

