Each year there are two books that I try, and fail, to read. These books are usually measured out in the stuff I will pick up to read or housework I would undertake rather than going back to them. They are probably at opposite ends of the ideological - and maybe even quality - spectrum, but both have so far proved to be unreadable.
I fail for different reasons: The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco is (as far as I can tell for the 34 pages I've managed to read) a dense, rich confection of thoughts, ideas and complex sentences that is, nonetheless, dull beyond comprehension. The second book is Atlas Shrugged by smokey sixties psychopath Ayn Rand, which appears to be naive, slow-witted and clunky.
Because I like doing difficult things - and because I'm now old enough to start thinking about actually being dead - I have decided to read these books together, alternating chapters - that way, each book might serve as displacement activity for the other - and writing down my thoughts, fears, and plans to burn both books once I've finished. In fact, the Rand book is on my Kindle, so I don't even get the pleasure of burning it.
This is, then, a one-man book club that will focus only on two books - both shit in their own way - and will attempt to think, and possibly over-think the meaning of them.
Some posts will deal with a chapter, some might deal with more or less, and some might just tackle an idea or thought that the books address (or fail to address) in detail.
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