I am about to log off, crawl into bed, and pick up 'finnegan's Wake' for the second time. This is the first book I have had to put aside since I was ten because it was too hard to read. Hopefully I can make it through this time. anyone else ever try to read a book they really wanted to finish but couldn't, for the same reason?

The Lord of the Rings. Its so big. I think I have finished it. But it took me ages. And I am a serious reader.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Crime and Punishment The Scarlet Letter Gone With the Wind (I don't know why it was so hard the first time around) In a similar note: there is a children's book called "The Red King." The first time I read it (around 11 years old) it disturbed the hell out of me and I was afraid of it. The second time around (around 17 years old) I loved it.

Oh, sorry. All those books were ones I had tried to read when I was young, and couldn't, but then returned to them when I was older, and loved them. I've tried but failed to read: The Three Musketeers The Brothers Karamazov The Lord of the Rings Childhood's End Anything by Charles Dickens

so, anyone hear anything about the Lord of the Rings trilogy currently being filmed in NZ? One rumor puts Sean Connery in the role of Gandalf and the use of computer imaging to reduce actors to dwarf and hobbit proportions without having to hire a large amount of midgets.

In case you haven't seen it, http://www.tolkien-movies.com/

yup, casting agents were here people lined up for miles computer imaging is the go Peter Jackson is awesome!

I'm trying to read The Man in the Iron Mask. I've been trying for the past few months. I don't know why I'm having problems with it...I can understand the dialect and the plot (so far), and it's interesting enough. I just can't seem to build up the interest to pick it up more often. I spent the whole day today reading old issues of the New Mutants. It's been tons of fun. I want to and have always wanted to be Dani Moonstar.

OOOh. I have some New Mutants in mint condition from when I worked at the comic book store in the (ahem) mid 80s. I should read them again instead of thumbing at them longingly through their little plastic sleevettes. Yeah. Good idea, Gee.

I have never been able to finish "Sound and the Fury." I never even started Finnegan's Wake. I know my limitations. The simple truth is I can't read hardly anything that might smack of an English class without coercion. Once the coercion is in place, I generally love the books I'm forced to read. Uhhh...have tried reading those various H. Miller books, but lose interest literally in the first paragraph, and inevitably pick up a romance novel or a mystery or sf. I'm just a genre reader, so sue me.

I have not been successful with "the sound and the fury" either. the only thing I know about "finnegans wake" is that the title does not contain an apostrophe. (I've heard this is significant, but that's all I know.) I've read a whole fuck of a lot of 19th-century british literature. I get stuck in countries without many english-language bookstores, and the cheapest books are always the penguin popular classics. so I read a lot of hardy, eliot, austen, dickens, etc. what the hell, it can't hurt.

"The Sound and the Fury" is one of my favorites. What might help is if you leave the first chapter for last. The second chapter (Quentin's) is the most beautifully written, while the last two are the most clear. The first time I tried to read it, I gave up after the first 5 or so pages because I was so damned confused. The first chapter is narrated by Benjamin, who is retarded and has no sense of time, so it seems like on one page he's a man and then 3 pages later he's a little boy and he keeps saying "Caddy smells like trees" over and over. Then you pick it up again and you get to Quentin's chapter, which has no punctuation. So you throw the book on your desk. Then you read Jason's chapter, which has a time-line and punctuation. So you keep reading, and you get to Dilsey's chapter, and you finally recognize the shape of the story. So you start the book over again and appreciate its genius. When I was in Italy I read a lot of Penguin Classics and National Geographics. That's how I discovered G.K. Chesterton and his Father Brown mysteries, which kick ass. And his book "The Man Who Was Thursday" is one of the coolest things I've ever read in my life. Yay, Penguin!

See, I've never had any trouble getting through the first quarter. I just can't go from the first quarter to the second. Sigh.

Hey, New Mutants fans! I've got the first graphic novel. Shows how much of a geek I am that I've still got it. But those first few issues were pretty good...

I still have the graphic novel too. I got it for christmas one year, the same time that I got a She-Hulk graphic novel where Jen had roaches swarming all over her. yuck! I'm at the point where Boom-Boom and co. have joined the gang now. I love the art of these issues (with them looking all young and cartoony), but it's getting to the point where the stories are too mature. I miss the childlike "capers" of their younger days at Xaviers'.

I limit my comics to the two X-men titles and Wolverine, and occaisionally the comic shop I order from sends me any limited series featuring an x-man. I read Elfquest until it went on hiatus, and I am a HUGE fan of Evan Dorkin.