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A Book Club Reader Discusses Her Experience with Book Slumps (Cervantes, Hugo, Austen, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy) (Patreon)

Published:
2021-09-16 07:15:57
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

We had a chat with a book club reader not too long ago about her ranking of the great books thus far (available here).

Today we're talking again, this time about reading slumps.

Topics include:

  • book slump vs life slumps
  • how to enjoy Cervantes' Don Quixote
  • how Les Misérables can change your life
  • the rewards of pursuing difficult pleasures
  • why I read multiple books at the same time
  • the benefits of a great books reading program

What has been your experience with reading slumps?

What helped bust you through? 

Happy reading!

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Comments

Anonymous

Sometimes slow and sometimes fast, reading suits the mind and the mood we are in. Slower doesn't always lead to a deeper understanding. Faster isn't always mindless. These works are stories, after all, and they reach us not just on an intellectual level but an emotional one. Sometimes when I'm bored or feeling a little lost, the solution is to speed up. Whether I savor a book or sprint through it, if it's good, it is likely not the only acquaintance I'll have with it. However the first time through turns out to be, if there's a second or a third time, that's where my understanding deepens. I read a lot of books with that understanding, that I'll be back. It takes the pressure off of that first reading.

Caroline P

What a lovely chat. Thank you. I experience book slumps when I start a book and find I just am not getting on with it. The awful feeling of either giving up on a book, being fickle or plunging on and feeling like my reading time is being wasted. And all that indecision leaves me discombobulated and dithering, unable to read anything. Since joining this book club (although I am fairly new) I haven’t experienced this awful feeling. I think this is due to a few things. Firstly the books have been truly great. Also the videos and comments by other book club members have enhanced the book so much that I can see so much more to think about. My reading has also changed. I annotate much more and this is helping me really engage with the books more. I have watched on the YouTubes those readers who read many books and often go back over past years reading and as they flick through the books there is a commonly heard comment…‘I can’t remember anything about that’. I am not criticising because I find there are many books I just forget about. I think I have gradually got better at noticing if I am reading one of those books and this is where my slumps are born. I think this book club is helping me recognise new friends from passers by in the street, if you see what I mean. Books I want to go for a coffee with, find out more about and being pleasantly surprised to find a new friend who will enrich my life. Another thing I have noticed is that a lot of more modern books seem out to manipulate me and tell me what I should be thinking. The truly great books are much more subtle, they seem to skirt around a subject and let me think for myself more. Don Quixote is a good example of that and Proust…and others too. Is this partly why they stand the test of time..they seep into our minds and question us. More often than I realise I hear things or people talking and my mind goes to a character or situation in a book and I can understand more of both. Anyway, thank you for the great reading list and for these encouraging podcasts and videos.

hardcoreliterature
>>67996293

I agree, a mix is definitely the best approach. I've noticed that when I consciously slow down, the immersion leads to a sense of flow and then, suddenly, the pages are flying by. I'm also a proponent for skimming or skipping pages if they're really torturous - sounds like heresy to many, but better than abandoning the work altogether. It sounds like you've found the value of rereading a long time ago, Don - my first reading is just the initial meeting of the world and characters too. With this approach in mind, one can afford to speed up because we'll be back quite soon! Taking the pressure off a reading is important - particularly with poetry, which requires a ton of rereading!

Anonymous
>>67996293

Yes, some writers are so subtle, you have to go slow or miss all the signposts. As you say: poets. On the other hand, there are some who cultivate abiguity. If you wait around trying to understand everything before the narrative has matured, you'll give up too soon.

Pablo
>>68013283

I ❤ your comments Caroline: You have a great voice, and I always seem to find myself either nodding in agreement, or taking something away from your posts 😀

Caroline P
>>68013283

Thank you Pablo, isn’t this the great thing about this book club. We all really love the books and the reading and benefit so much from each other in our conversations 😃.

Scott W
>>68013283

I agree. I've only been here a matter of days but I'm so glad to have found you all. :)

hardcoreliterature
>>68013283

Thank you for sharing, Caroline! As I mentioned in an above comment to Pablo, the comments here from readers are truly incredible - the amount of personal growth afforded by the deep-reading of everyone here is humbling. I have found my construction of lectures recently evolving in response to comments, which has been an incredibly rewarding living experience. I'm glad none of the books on the list have so far resulted in a book slump for you. When I first read each of them, at different parts there were points where I wanted to put them down (I particularly struggled with Austen for years), but when I do work through them, I find the possibility of a slump for that author or book is gone forever - and then returning to reread is always rewarding. It's great to hear you're annotating! Very often, it's simply the act of scribbling anything in the margins that has the benefit. It keeps us connected and active whilst reading. I also went through my own binge-read period many years back, and by the end of the year I couldn't remember anything. Often, especially with certain contemporary books, I would see the book lying around a few months down the line and not even be sure if I had ever read it. From then on, I changed my criteria for successful reading. Surely, when one gets to the end of a year that only has a handful of great novels read with a slow pace (Les Misérables, Anna Karenina, Don Quixote), one would remember them vividly. I love that idea of friends on a street. I totally get what you mean and have experienced the same feeling. I also agree with you about modern books being a little bit too... on the nose? Dictatorial? With Cervantes and Proust, we have so much nuance and room to develop our own thoughts. I'm reminded of the opening to Emerson's great essay 'Self-Reliance': 'The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain.' Great writers inspire and provoke. Thank you for the great comment :)