I do this frequently, and by this I mean not finishing a book I started reading. Without apology. I take my cue from Samuel Johnson, who as a critic, lexicographer and literary sensorium, was perhaps the greatest reader who ever lived. He was already an extraordinarily popular literary figure and at a dinner party one evening when a woman approached him and asked if hed read a popular book then making the rounds of 18th Century London. His reply: I have looked into it. The woman was aghast: What? You mean to tell me that the great Dr. Johnson doesnt read books through? He paused, and looked her square in the eye: No, madam. Do *you* read books through? Boswell once tried to counter him on this topic, that a book, once started, should be finished. Johnson would have none of it: This is surely a strange advice; you may as well resolve that whatever men you happen to get acquainted with, you are to keep them for life. A book may be good for nothing; or there may be only one thing in it worth knowing; are we to read it all through? And remember this is the same man who dutifully (and he would not have used that word lightly) slogged through all 12 books of Miltons Paradise Lost and concluded that it is one of the books which the reader admires and puts down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 14:18:54 +0000
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