On Giving Up

There are actually two reasons for my long hiatus from this blog.  The first is that I relocated once again, and for the last few months, my life has been consumed by the logistical and emotional challenges that come with a trans-Atlantic move.  The second is that I spent almost two months tackling Bolaño's 2666.

Now, 2666 takes time:  the English edition is over 900 pages.  But it also took me so long to finish because, simply put, I hated reading it.  One major plotline involves the rapes and murders of three hundred women in Mexico.  Bolaño goes into intimate/excruciating detail about each of the murders and, as Jonathan Lethem succinctly described it in his New York Times review, "[i]f the word 'unflinching' didn’t exist, I’d invent it to describe these nearly 300 pages."

Yet I kept reading the novel, though I hated every page.  And it made me wonder:  at what point is it appropriate to give up on a book?

I stumbled across a Wall Street Journal article discussing "book guilt": the feeling when you stop reading a book midway, heightened when the book "has been widely praised or is considered a classic."  (In this case, 2666 had received such acclaim that I felt that I should like it, or at least give it the courtesy of finishing it.)  The article offers the following rule of thumb:

Nancy Pearl, who writes the excellent "Book Lust" series, recommends that people 50 years old or younger give a book about 50 pages before deciding to give it up. "If you're over 50, which is when time gets shorter," she continues, "subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before deciding whether or not to quit.

Fifty pages seems a little short to me, especially given that some books - like Cloud Atlas - involve a slow build.  But if not fifty, then how many?  100?  200?  How do you know when - if ever - to quit?