During the series of lockdowns enforced in India since the pandemic came to our airports, life, as we know it, has turned on its head. For the privileged among it, it has meant a greater familiarity with the four walls of our houses, experiments in the kitchen, Zoom hijinks, work from home irritants, and worshipping at the altar of reliable high-speed wifi. To the reading community, the lockdown ostensibly grants what we swear up and down is the only thing keeping us from devouring as many books as we like: time.
As weeks pile upon weeks however, many of us have had to come to terms with the fact that there are some titles and authors that even an unprecedented pandemic-wrought lockdown won’t make palatable. Below, readers from all over the country share with us the titles/authors they just cannot get into:
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Sameera Mehta (Asst. Professor, Delhi)
“I’ve not been reading enough to be quite honest because teaching has totally exhausted me. I do have James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man whom I’ve tried to read multiple times in my life but never quite managed. I understand the beauty of his poetic vision but I can’t bring myself to labour through his radical innovations with language.”
Sameer Yadav, Software Engineer, Pune
“I was strong-armed into buying a copy of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale by my sister. I am not much of a reader but I had heard all the hype surrounding the show and wanted to read the book before I gave it a watch. I got through 50 pages before the exigencies of life interrupted the process. Between the rigours of 24×7 work from home expectations and household chores, my copy lies neglected somewhere. To top it all, a colleague left her pet bird and turtle in my care during the lockdown so both duties and entertainment galore, Maybe I will pick it up again when (if?) everything goes back to normal.”
Alia Sinha, Illustrator and Theatre Practitioner, Delhi
“ The Journal of Dora Damage by Belinda Sterling. A steamy Victorian thriller based on the story of an impoverished bookbinder who finds herself enmeshed “in a web of sex, money and deceit”. I’ve been saving this up for dark times, and now that dark times are here, every time I try to read it, it feels almost too juicy and exciting to bear. In anticipating its end (and loss) , I’ve ended up not reading it at all.”
Angad Singh, Owner, The Gwalior Sickness Centre Skatepark, Gwalior
“I guess i could say this for Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. I find it deeply uncomfortable to read that book. Although it’s been so highly recommended to by so many and I should finish it, to understand people’s contempt for it, or people’s admiration. He does write very well, but oh god the subject matter is so creepy”
Adwaita Das, Author, Mumbai
“I read and loved Dubliners by Jame Joyce. So, after that, I borrowed his Ulysses from the library for the first time. It has been 15-20 years since then. I have borrowed multiple copies of it from various libraries. I bought myself my own copy along with the book of annotations (which is double or triple the size of Ulysses or even bigger). But I have never managed to read beyond a certain number of pages. As JJ himself declares at the in his famous quote about Ulysses, he intended to boggle readers and critics for “centuries”. And goodness has he been successful. Each word is a reference. Every phrase is loaded with layers of meaning. From ancient mythology to contemporary politics, characters and sentences present myriad points of allusion and citation cloaked and displayed in dialogues and descriptions constantly. In true epic manner, finishing Ulysses by James Joyce would be an epic feat. I hope to undertake this journey to fulfilment in this lifetime of mine for sure!”
Aileen Carneiro, Foreign language specialist, Goa
“Joseph Anton: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie is a book I couldn’t finish. Actually it was more because I had to return the book before leaving town, but I still feel that I had more than enough time to read it. I even found it interesting on some level, but somehow couldn’t get through even half of it. A possible reason I can think of is that the book had an endless number of literary references. (Almost like Gilmore Girls in print.) And sometimes, I’d stop my reading to Google those. I don’t think that was necessary for me to be familiar with every one of them. The literary references in themselves were not plot-relevant.”
Vivek Gopal, Editor, Delhi
“I’ve had David Mitchell’s number9dream sitting on my shelf for years. I liked Cloud Atlas plenty but every time I sit down in my reading nook and crack this open, I find myself uncaring, struggling to find joy. I think of the books that I have been able to read and can’t help but wonder if what I really want/need is something that echoes my own futile terrified screaming, or perhaps I’m finally tired of white men and the worlds they create. For the first time in an alarmingly long time I am in possession of surfeit time. And so I pull down Tree of Smoke from its dusty corner. And it’s too much. There’s too much noise, too much detail, I am drowning in Denis Johnson’s world and fuck him, because I’m drowning plenty in mine and I just want to heave up in dry land. And so that goes back on the shelf as well.”
Ameya, Community Manager, Delhi
“Teju Cole’s Open City: I was so excited by this book. I’d heard so much about it, and it was described as a wandering through new York, a city I adore. And I was lucky enough to meet him and he’s lovely. But dear God that book. I tried to read it four times. Never got past chapter 2. A greater order to the modern literary edifice of pointless solipsistic pontification under the guise of inspection I have not read.”
Kinjal Sethia, Feature Writer, Pune
“Mrs Funbybones by Twinkle Khanna…could not read after page 15. The book is anything but funny. I think the book is a product of someone trying to appease her because of who she is. But if it was written by some non-celebrity, no publication would even bother to reply. The craft is crass, as is her attempt at humour. Seriously, don’t pick it up if you are a real fan of good books.”
Abhipsha Mahapatro, Policy Student, Berlin
“When the lockdown was announced, I did a mental calculation of all the books I could read now that I ‘had the time’. I still had online classes going on, as it was in the middle of the semester. But inspite of all the time, I couldn’t get myself to read. A friend sent me a dropbox full of books and I had brought some hard copies with me from home. However, I also believed, like so many others, that I should utilise this time to be productive. So instead of picking a fiction novel, which is what I enjoy reading the most, I tried to read non-fiction and educational books on Policy and Economics. Couldn’t get through either and it felt like I was re-reading the same pages over and over. After a few failed attempts, I just gave up on the thought of reading instead of switching to a book I would have probably liked.”
Isha Purkayastha, Teacher, Bangalore
“Reading Milan Kundera’s Slowness is my preferred form of self-flagellation. Each time I sit down to it, I feel the weight of The Canon bear down on me, judging my inability to get through this piddly little novella. I don’t care how much time I have on my hands and give up in despair. I don’t know why it aggravates me as much as it does, but I’ve told myself that I’m perfectly happy lying about having read it in circles that value pretentious erudition.”
Ashish Krishna, Research Scholar, Goa
“ Subhash Chandran’s Manushyanu Oru Aamukham ( A Preface to Man) is considered as one of the finest works penned in Malayalam. So I was naturally delighted to pick up a copy from the Cochin airport bookstore during a trip to Hyderabad. It has been 2 years now that I’ve got the book and for some reason or the other, I’ve never been able to move past the first few pages. Initially it was probably my impatience with the philosophical tone of the book that put me off but when the author controversially suggested that the reason for the protagonist’s son’s autism was his parent’s unhappy marriage, I gave up. I understand the whole “separate art from artist” line of argument but I could never look at the book in the same way thereafter. I may never find out what all the hype about the book is and I have made my peace with it.”
Hasumi, Chairwoman, Bungotakada Agricultural Forestry and Fishery Network and Food systems program lead, FoundingBase co ltd, Japan
“Well, I have been reading or have started to read this book by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman called The Daily Stoic, and since the passages are small and motivational, I thought I could go through it… but in the end, lockdown lethargy and ebbs and flows in motivation has made it impossible to finish. Another book, is Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 lessons for the 21st century, and it is very fascinating to read but sometimes you just aren’t in the mood of reading something that mirrors the understated reality of the world while going through a pandemic…”
Titash Sen, Media professional, Mumbai
“Never have I ever finished reading The Melancholy of Resistance by Lazlo Kraznahorkai. Infact, I have barely gotten past the second chapter, despite having gone back to it over and over again. Perhaps it’s got something to do with the way it was translated; perhaps its the sentences that span the length of a page. But I suppose there is a glitch in the cosmic design of this world, and I am forever doomed to perioically revisit this book, reading the same chapter to myself like a broken record.”
Parul Kamra, Programme Manager, Wishes and Blessings NGO
“Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman – the meandering language makes me want to meander away from the book. It’s a handy tome to throw at someone’s head.”
Rosheena Zehra, Media Professional, Mumbai
“I never leave a book incomplete, in the hope that just maybe, eventually, I will stumble across something in it that will make it worthwhile. However, a book which constantly made me believe that there is indeed nothing to go back to was William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. Let me share with you a warning that I never got before starting it – it is NOT meant for leisure reading. It is supposed to be a stylistic feat and perhaps a comment on the breakdown of language and communication, but man, is it difficult to comprehend. It took me several weeks to finish it (when I’d probably finish a book of its size and length within one), and there is hardly anything that I remember about the story, leave aside any moment of enlightenment or satisfaction that I mostly hope for before picking up a book. Faulkner would definitely have had more of my admiration if I only knew what he was talking about.”
What book/author have you not been able to get into despite more time on your hands? Tell us in the comments below!