[PaulB]

I’ll start off by saying that I don’t read (books) as much as I should, which is something I’m trying to change.

I don’t really gravitate towards aviation books, but am currently struggling through “Southern Mail” & “Night Flight” by Antoine de Saint-Expuéry. I’m not finding it a page turner by any means. Perhaps it’s the translation.

It got me thinking about what makes a good book.... and being the simplistic scientist that I am, I was thinking “easy to read narrative - surely if you want to tell a story, you make it easy to read” and “good story”. Why make a book difficult to read for the reader?

Well, there’s a longish read in Saturday’s Guardian that tackled that subject. It certainly got me thinking about how I choose the books that I want to read and why.


A book may be

“challenging […] the way a walk up Snowdon is challenging. It is definitely worth it because the view is terrific when you get to the top.”

And

We like to see sportsmen and women doing difficult things. We tend to recognise in music, film, television and the plastic arts that good stuff often asks for a bit of work from its audience. And we’re all on board with “difficult” material as long as it’s a literary classic – we read The Waste Land for our A-levels and we scratched our heads as we puzzled it out, and now we recognise that it is like it is because it has to be that way. So why is “difficult” a problem when it comes to new fiction?

As I say it’s quite a long article, but I’m left wondering how I work out what I’m going to read next (and whether I’ll finish “Southern Mail”)

On the other hand it all may be a load of pretentious twaddle.

It does however mention an aviation related book at the end, “Day” by AL Kennedy. Anyone read that?

I’d be interested in the thoughts of those here, both on the subject in general and maybe even about Kennedy’s book.

[kanga]

Two 'aviation' books both 'difficult' and 'worth it' (in my opinion), because they extrapolate aviation into questions of philosophy are 'Round The Bend' (Shute) and 'Le Petit Prince' (St Ex) . Both are among my favourites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_the_Bend_(novel)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Prince

I''m fairly sure I've read St Ex only in French, wherein the 'difficult' bits (not the language) I personally found unchallenging; including Vol de Nuit and Courrier Sud, but it is possible the translation has not helped.

[PaulB]

It reads like an awkward translation. My French isn’t up to much... enough to recognise the titles, but that’s about it.

[Flyingfemme]

@Kanga - interesting take on Shute. I read lots of his books as a teenager (for pleasure, nothing to do with school) and was riveted by most of them; Round the bend included. I suppose it was the choice of subjects I found interesting.
These days I don’t read so many books and am guilty of taking the “easy read” that I can pick up and put down as necessary. Time pressure, I guess.

[lobstaboy]

Here's a good starting point
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/ ... -full-list
You may not always agree with McCrumb (I don't) but if it's on his list it's worth a go.
A good novel doesn't have to be difficult to read, tho some are (I loathe The Great Gatsby, and Ulysses is impossible but fun to try). As with many things in life you get back what you put in, so a bit of effort is worth it).

[PaulB]

A good novel doesn't have to be difficult to read...

That’s where I came into this argument. I was, it appears, simplistically thinking that good prose should be easy to read and the story should be clear. The article cited in the OP disavows me of that, although rather like FF above, I’d rather a good narrative and prose (a page turner, if you like) than something that has to be worked at.

....tho some are (I loathe The Great Gatsby, and Ulysses is impossible but fun to try). As with many things in life you get back what you put in, so a bit of effort is worth it).

That’s the “climbing Snowdon” analogy in the article - difficult, but the view at the top makes it worthwhile.

Perhaps I need to start easy and work my way up.... or perhaps life is too short?

[Bill Haddow]

Just as there is supposedly no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing, there is no such thing as a book that is difficult to read, only poor typesetting or uncorrected vision.

When it comes to books that are difficult to understand, well the phrase "Emperor's new clothes" does rather spring to mind.

Bill H

[PaulB]

Just as there is supposedly no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing, there is no such thing as a book that is difficult to read, only poor typesetting or uncorrected vision.

When it comes to books that are difficult to understand, well the phrase "Emperor's new clothes" does rather spring to mind.

Insightful as ever.....

[lobstaboy]

In some cases the climbing Snowden analogy is good. Proust is bleddy difficult but ultimately rewarding because of the "wow, yes, life is like that!" moments.
Ulysses is difficult simply because Joyce was trying it on. It's deliberate ly hard to understand simply for the sake of showing how clever he is.
Tosser!

Anyway there are more great works of fiction out there that I'll never have to to read, so it's all rather academic really.

[PaulB]

Anyway there are more great works of fiction out there that I'll never have to to read, so it's all rather academic really.

That's absolutely true.... It was an interesting article as it made me think about these things and why I might want to read them. I guess it might change the way that I choose books in the future. The problem is, that I always struggle to choose fiction as there's so much of it.

I read for enjoyment.... I guess it's the difference between watching TV for light hearted entertainment or watching something more complex and challenging.

[kanga]

Why you should take time out away from your desk to read difficult books; or, why there may be more money in giving this sort of advice to the rich than staying in an important job in public service

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/11/busi ... treet.html

[Charles Hunt]

The first thought I had on this was "Don't even think about Ulysses" but others got there first!

Still a chance for me to re-tell this one.

Paddy is in an interview to work in construction, and he's gone through all the questions on groundworks and reinforced concrete, and he's on to the structural steel questions.

"Now then Paddy, can you tell me the difference between Joist and Girder?"

"Ah to be sure sir, Joyce wrote Ulysses and Goethe wrote Faust."

[TopCat]

I'm shockingly poorly read, and I decided to do something about it a few years back. So I thought I'd read some Dickens, and as it's short, and we all know the story, I started with A Christmas Carol.

I liked it so much that I read A Tale of Two Cities, and I absolutely loved that too, and it even inspired me to read up a little on the French Revolution.

I haven't read any other classic literature since, other than the Lord of the Rings, but it was surprisingly rewarding.

[defcribed]

I've read St. Ex. (in English) and could only conclude that the translation must be pretty poor or perhaps impossible to do well. I got the point of the stories and liked what they made me imagine, but the prose was not engaging at all.

My French is not good enough to read the originals, but I hope that one day it may be.

[Charles Hunt]

I’ve struggled with Dickens, reads maybe 50 pages of small print, which seemed like 5% of the book, and nothing at all had happened. One of the very few I’ve given up on.

In contrast I did manage War and Peace.