There is a near-infinite list of writers I will never read; a few compel me to seek out everything I can find.
Between them, a smaller, more dispiriting group: writers I would like to read, have attempted, but whose work has left me untouched. Henry James, Iris Murdoch, Thomas Pynchon, John McGahern, Patrick White. With the exception of James, I have read at least one book by each; though the quality of the writing was clear, something essential failed to stir.
Each of these encounters lingers as a private disappointment: not of the writer, but of my own capacity to connect with what others find vital. Literature seems to live in that space of connection; its absence unsettles me, not as criticism, but as a question. What am I not seeing?
The desire remains: to cross the distance between appreciation and engagement, to find not only the shape of meaning but that lived experience of reading that makes a text necessary.
>I am a committed and serious fan of Henry James's shorter fiction. There's a lot of it, fyi.
>Murdoch: The Sea, The Sea. McGahern: Amongst Women. Pynchon: I love Rainbow, but maybe Mason and Dixon.I can't read James either. A friend urged White's Voss on me about six months ago, but….
>I can't seem to get into Henry James either, but Iris Murdock is one I've been meaning to try. In fact I was at the library yesterday but was overwhelmed with her vast selection.
>For Patrick White, I'd suggest The Solid Mandala.
>I'm with you on Pynchon, although I will give him a second try at some point. Murdoch is a curious one, I'm reading all of her work at the moment, slowly, from start to finish. I enjoyed her first novel, Under the Net, it wasn't anything like the others I'd tried before (before I started my project). What of hers did you read, by the way?
>Colleen: That's an inspiring idea; I've never thought of James as a short story writer. That'll be a good place to begin. Thanks.BDR: Thank you for the suggestions. I've read The Sea, The Sea: beautiful but it left me cold, two days later I could not tell you what I had read. I will try Amongst Women. I'm not sure I am ready to give Rainbow another try yet, perhaps …Daniel-Halifax: I watched the Murdoch biog film recently, and I'm tempted to try her fiction again, though I was unable to engage with her writing when I last tried.Jen: Thank you. I knew you'd come though with a White suggestion, and it looks like a good one.Michelle: I've read Under the Net, The Bell, The Sea, The Sea and The Black Prince. I read each one quite happily but they left me cold. In no case can I recall much about either book after the event.
>I began reading Pynchon with The Crying of Lot 49 and wasn't impressed, but I read V about a year later and really enjoyed that.
>thezebracactus: Thanks for your comment; I've not tried V. I'll read the first 20 or so pages over an espresso next time I am in Waterstones.
>I'd say you've read enough Murdoch to know she's not for you. Reading is so personal, there must be something about her style that keeps you a bit outside her text universe, so that while you can appreciate it while you're reading, it doesn't settle for good.
>That is logical, Michelle, and I agree intellectually but instinctively I feel urged toward Murdoch. It was watching the biopic that relit an old fuse. Perhaps I should try her non-fiction: have you read 'Metaphysics'?
>Try early Murdoch like Under the Net,
>Thomas at My Porch – Thanks for the suggestion, but I didn't warm to Under the Net, though I appreciate the quality of the prose.
>Try James' The Turn of the Screw. It's a novella and a great ghost story.
>Thanks, Stefanie, that's a good suggestion. I saw a version on TV ages ago and tend to think that I've already read the book.
>As with learning to enjoy a food or warm toward a relation, it's not so much a matter of "where" as "when." It took about 15 years of occasional bounced attempts before I found myself suddenly enthralled by James's work, and unpredictably my entree was the "difficult" period rather than the "accessible" one.Best, I think, not to stubbornly knock one's sconce against the same unyielding surface without respite — the resulting grudge can become embedded in one's sense of self, to no one's final benefit.
>Thanks for your comment, Ray. That is what I've concluded for Iris Murdoch.