Total Number of Ratings: 6
Unputdownable
Tuesday, May 11, 2010 9:28 PM
Recently, I've been waging a bit of a personal war on the term "unputdownable." It's a word, like "meh" or these other review terms, that has been overused to the point of becoming a ridiculous cliche. Though the term has been in use since the forties, it now seems that it's on the back of almost every bestseller. Roger Ebert uses it. Stephen King uses it. It is everywhere, and it exists as shorthand for "I can't put into words exactly why I couldn't put this down." At it's worst, it's a lazy shortcut to get around describing what is good about a book.
OK, now that I've got that out of the way - I do like the idea behind the term unputdownable. Reading some books, it's easy to meander along, reading a dozen pages or so a day and savoring every word in your head. Certainly, there's something enjoyable about giving a book time to breathe, letting the plot roll around in your unconscious as you move deliberately towards a conclusion. Some books warrant this attention. Although I cite The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay as my favorite book, it was far from unputdownable; I spent about two months slowly working through the pages. Often, the realities of life - there just aren't enough hours to devote to reading - set the pace of a book.
The review blurbers do have something right. There is something intoxicating about a book that you can not put down, no matter how hard you try. Books like this play with your perception of time; I've lost plenty of good hours of sleep because I was convinced I could get through another 25, 50 or 100 pages before I needed rest. Books like this aren't simply read. They are devoured in huge hungry gulps in bunches of pages you could measure with a ruler. There's something exhilarating, moving and exhausting about a book that is really "unputdownable."
Most recently a book I couldn't shake was Joe Hill's Horns, this month's pick in the Murmur book club. I don't want to give away too many of my thoughts on the book (I'll save that for the podcast), but I will say that Horns captured my attention in a big way. I didn't read Ig Perrish's story over a month or a week. I mainlined Horns in three exhausting 150+ page bursts. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is another book I couldn't stop reading More than any other book I can think of, I felt that the author of Wao compelled me to keep going. I didn't so much read the book as I was dragged through it by the strength of Diaz' voice and characters. Nick Flynn, Chuck Palahniuk and Alex Lemon are other authors that right in a way that makes me persuade myself that I have to read just one more chapter.
Or one more page.
Or one more paragraph. Anything to keep from putting down the book.
Comics and graphic novels are also unputdownable books for me. I blame it on the episodic nature of many of the stories, which leads to cliffhangers that are resolved only one page later. The speed with which I read a comic also inspires me to keep going and rare is the night I don't finish a graphic novel (no matter how late I started it). There are obviously exceptions - Watchmen, Asterios Polyp and a few Morrison comics have put my brain through gymnastics that slowed my reading to a crawl. Still, these are just exceptions, and I plowed through literally weighty fare like Brubaker and Miller's omnibuses of Captain America and Daredevil in a few coffee-fueled hours.
What's the last book that you simply couldn't put down? Can you describe why, or is "unputdownable" all that fits? Are there any books that were "putdownable" for you, either because you couldn't get into them or forced yourself to slow down? Let the book recommendations and unrecommendations fly in the comments.
I have to use the same term as Kelly for Richard Stark's Parker novels. I find myself going through 80-odd pages in about an hour. That's because his writing style just takes you through the story so quickly. There's little detail outside of what's necessary to follow the story. It generally takes me 2-3 days to get through a book. The only reason I didn't get through Maus in one chunk is because it just got so depressing. I still got through it in about 4 hours, I just had to take a break to keep from getting depressed.
For reasons still unknown, I thought Alison Weir's biography of Eleanor of Acquitaine was unputdownable. And it's not like I flew through it or devoured it really-it's too dense for that-but I literally could not put the book down. I remember pulling it out at a restaurant while we were waiting to be seated. I was just completely engrossed.
Most recently I devoured Phonogram: Rue Britannia... twice.
The last book that was "unputdownable" for me, although mostly out of necessity, was the Bible. I have a final on it in a week and I needed to read the entire New Testament.
The last book that was unputdownable because I really liked it was The Lost City of Z, absolutely fantastic. Others that fit into this category are Schopenhauer's Telescope and the Phantom Tollbooth (which I read once a year). Everything else I'm required to put down since I don't have much time and, when I do have the time, I usually don't have the light (being backstage at a show I'm working on).
The last book I could put down, which really saddened me because I really like the author, was Robin Hobb's Forest Mage (2nd in a series). The first book was great, so I got the 2nd one on my kindle, but it was just utter garbage.
After reading this article, I wonder if I read purely for the high that comes with a book that I have to throw down the hall to sleep.
I tried to read Cavalier and Clay and after getting about halfway through it, I floundered with the same 25 pages for about a month wondering, "Did I read this already?" before putting it down. I know I'll pick it up again, but knowing I'm not the only one who thought it was dry, I'll approach it differently the 2nd time through. Try to finish it in chunks.
Something else this article made me realize: If a book makes me lose sleep, it's good. If it doesn't, it's not so good. Plenty of variation in between the statments, but it ultimately decides if I'll read it again and how soon. This isn't a perfect approach I know.
Any suggestions on how to push through more difficult stories?
A podcast with Micheal Stackpole:
http://www.dragonpage.com/2010/04/27/cover-to-cover-405a/
He talked about a book he was reading that made him fall asleep when he wasn't tired. One of the reasons for it was sentences
were upto 40 words long with no breaks. Kinda the opposite of what you're talking about, but it made me rethink everything I write.
Recent books I couldn't put down:
Shutter Island - Dennis Lehane - predictable, dark. Didn't see the movie yet, previews look exactly like the book in my mind.
The Fuck Up - Arthur Nersesian - don't know how to describe this one, while it had some "crazy hijinx" it had a real personal story.
This Boy's Life - Tobias Wolff - I liked Catcher in the Rye, and this book, while an autobiography, is miles better.
A Song of Ice and Fire series - George RR Martin - Working in TV for so many years, Martin knows how to deliver episodic content. Every chapter
has a beginning, middle, and end, as does each book.
The Walking Dead - Robert Kirkman - Comic book, zombie apocalypse. I never cared for comic books other than Watchmen and Sandman.
I read all of Kirkman's stuff now. Rock solid writer with an firm grip on what makes comic book stories fun.
i find ASoIaF dangerously putdownable. i'd reach the end of a chapter and desperately need to find out what happened next to that character, check the table of contents and realize i had about 6 chapters between me and what i want and put it down. it's so dense that reading it is tiring and any time i came up against a character i didn't particularly care about, it took a while to work up the desire to get back into it.
(this should not be confused for not liking the series, it's one of my favorites)
Agreed that certain characters had less to enjoy than others, but the other characters drove me so much I could push through who I didn't like. Most times I'd end up enjoying the chapter by then end. Luckily for me, there were only 2-3 characters I didn't care for, and most of them were minor.
@caroline the books are so dense, i'm not even sure that they'll be able to get through an entire book in a season. based on his blog, it doesn't sound like they're going to short-change much, either.
so you could probably "wait" until you see how the show grabs you. or just start. they're pretty spectacular.
It's kind of unfortunate that the last book I had this experience with was "Twilight". Though that is maybe more "can't look away" than "can't put down."
The last books that did this to me by being really GOOD were probably "The Sparrow" and "Children of God" by Mary Doria Russell. "The Sparrow" particularly was a book that completely drained me of my desire to do anything else. . .and it's not a short or light read. I think this has something to do with how the book is structured, which is that it has a "present action" story alternating with flashback chapters, so the reader is simultaneously following the main character's recovery from a horrible event and learning what led up to him getting to that point. I've read books with a similar structure before, actually (Laura Lippman's "What the Dead Know" comes to mind) and had a similar experience. So it's one of those approaches that, in the hands of a good writer, really clicks with me -- giving the sensation, I guess, of moving backwards and forwards at once.
Responding to myself -- come to think of it, the first book club book "Beat the Reaper" is structured the same way, and I also read that one very quickly, but I think that had more to do with it being a quick read and my not having anything else to do. I don't think it would have bothered me to put it down for something else -- so the structure has to be used in service of a story I really care about, too.
I think the pacing of Beat the Reaper had a lot to do with how "unputdownable" it was. For most of the story that guy is literally on the run.
Very true! A fast-moving book like that definitely has that effect (another one I remember being like that is Grisham's "The Firm," which I read in high school). It's not the only factor for me, though, as most of the other books I mentioned don't have that kind of action going for them -- it's more about the suspense of what's going to happen next.
i think i use the word "inhaled" where others use "unputdownable." i find those kinds of books frustrating because i'm so engaged and desperate for the resolution that i often miss a bunch of great writing or plot points because i'm racing through it. even on the rare occasions that i've gone back and tried to re-read the passages i blew through, i have a hard time focusing on the details. i *still* need to get to the resolution.
yes, i'm complaining about something that i enjoy because it's too enjoyable. have you met me yet?
I actually know exactly what you're hinting at. Some of the books I absolutely breezed through - books I consider all-time favorites - are terribly difficult for me to describe in detail. I KNOW I liked what I read, but I moved through it so quickly that I can't put together the details in a cohesive way.
There are lots of books I can't put down. Most recently was Stephen King's Under the Dome, which I finished in... 3 days? the last 3rd in a night/early morning.
I think the secret is the rhythm. Some books seem to have that driving syntax that just pulls you forward, faster and faster until the end. Even if it takes you hours every time you hit that BEAT your heart quickens, your breath catches and you get a new spurt of energy to plow onward.
I applaud you for finishing that MASSIVE book in such a short time. It really is a compliment to King's writing unless you're some sort of super-human speed reader.
I think you're right about the rhythm in the writing. One of the reasons Oscar Wao grabbed me was the frenetic, run-on sentences Diaz wrote. As I was reading, I could feel myself accelerating, and I didn't feel particularly in control of my pace..
Respond
I was captivated by 'Heart Shaped Box' recently, also by Joe Hill. Despite not liking the main character at all, and occasionally rooting against him, you want to find out what happens to him. Hill succeeds in capturing the rough charisma of an aging rock god in that character. 'the World is Flat' is an absolute must read for anyone who intends to have a legitimate conversation on the state of the world today. You may not agree with everything in it, I certainly didn't, but you need it for a point of reference. Finally, I love the 'Song of Ice and Fire' series, which is a fantasy series. It has a decidedly brutal streak and focuses much more on politics than on swordplay, which is a plus.