I have been reading Finnegans Wake over the course of this year, a few pages a day, along with a group over on reddit. It is one of the very few things that still keeps me visiting reddit at all.
Since the group are aiming to have a few weeks to review the book, I now have only two weeks before finishing it. It has been quite a ride, hovering right on the edge of comprehension at best - and usually some way beyond.
Last year, I read Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, and the year before War and Peace - which makes particular sense in this format, since there are 365 chapters.
Anyhoo, I am now giving thought to my next annual big read. Some options are The Brothers Karamazov, Gravity’s Rainbow, and Crime and Punishment but I sm undecided and would like to consider some others.
Have you done anything of the sort? Do you have any suggestions?
EDIT - and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms sounds like an interesting one too.
I like the idea of having one big book to read in a year. I have done that with East of Eden and the Glass Bead Game. Both of which are meaty epic books. I tackled them initially as a rebellion against the short attention span world we live in. Even in reading niches, I all too often see reading challenges that set # of book goals. I think it’s absurd to claim that someone has read 20 books in a year that are short, verses one long book. The former is often applauded while the latter is not.
Karamazov has been one that I’ve been wanting to read all my life, so maybe I’ll attempt it in 2024 myself.
Non linear writing is a struggle for me, but I try to challenge myself with it. I’m currently reading The Waves by Virginia Woolf which is incredibly abstract but beautiful. I assume Gravity’s Rainbow to be similar. But it’s a thick book too.
What’s considered a short book vs a long book?
I am a voracious reader and can go through a dozen 400-500 page books a year. 700+ pages is where I really feel like I can get into a story.
Problem is, there just aren’t that many 1000+ page books anymore in the genres I enjoy the most. I’ll see mostly book series of 3-5 books all in the 400-500 page range, and I can devour several different entire series over the course of a year.
There’s really no perfect standard for length in any format. I read on my phone so one page to you may be 5 pages to me.
I could see the word standard itself being the only reliable format. Like Standard Ebook uses as a measure for book length, but it may be hard to adopt generally.
“I read 567,000 words last month,” may come off oddly. But certainly not unreasonable.
“Let’s do a 200,000 word/month challenge!”