Life's too short for thousand-page novels

bsolah · Jun 15, 2009

I read this article in The Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/may/27/fiction - in which the writer says:

...I am saying that we are living in an era where novels of epic length are unlikely to be of interest to most readers. In part, it's about the way that we live and read. Rather, I think it is important to remember that Eliot and Dickens and other writers who produced our best-loved 1,000-pagers were writing in a time when they were not only often getting paid by the word, but in which they had little competition for their reader's attention.

I really agree with this. I find a lot of longer novels are padded with over described scenes, they make me impatient, and they fail to hold my attention.

Some of my favourite novels are the shorter one like Fight Club.

Lyra Jean · Jun 15, 2009

I love the Otherland series by Tad Williams. It a series of 4 books and each one is between 800-900 pages long (paperback). Good story, good description, fun read. Yeah it's a door stopper.

Vincent · Jun 15, 2009

rosemerry said:
I love the Otherland series by Tad Williams. It a series of 4 books and each one is between 800-900 pages long (paperback). Good story, good description, fun read. Yeah it's a door stopper.

Seconded. His Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy is just as massive. In fact, the third book is so big they had to split it in two to fit into paperback.

And I enjoyed every word.

bsolah · Jun 15, 2009

I guess there's always going to be exceptions. Some novels, and indeed depending on the reader, will be worth the longer read.

But I can't help but feel a lot of people read longer novels for the status. It seems you're a better reader, more cultured if you can plough through tomes. Again, not saying this is everyone and every case, but I have gotten that feel from some people.

Fokker Aeroplanbau · Jun 15, 2009

Longer it is, the better it is. Sorry, but that's how I feel.

willietheshakes · Jun 15, 2009

Fuck. That.

That's all I'm sayin.

HelloKiddo · Jun 15, 2009

Aside from the challenge of ignoring all the digital noise, even the most Luddite readers have finite lifetimes to devote to reading. And when there are so many thousands of books to enjoy, it seems inefficient to read a single volume of 200,000 words if there's any risk that it won't be a work of staggering genius (more often than not – yes, I'm going to say it – they're boring, or at least intercut with seriously boring chunks) when the time could be equally spent enjoying a diversity of works from several different writers.

Yep. That's how I feel. When I see a massive tome with a thousand pages I realize that I could read three other books in the time it takes me to read that one.

As my logic goes, that means that book has to be good enough to be worth replacing three other novels with. Most books aren't IMO. I usually skip very long books.

Fokker Aeroplanbau · Jun 15, 2009

Well look at Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, or Tolkien's Trilogy + Hobbit, or Stephen King's Gunslinger, or Ludwig von Mises' Human Action, or Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, or J.K Rowling's Harry Potter, Stephen King's (again) The Stand, or any manner of in-depth history books (Perlstein's Nixonland was long, as well as his Barry Goldwater biography) that are acclaimed. The closer you get to a 1000 and especially past 1000 pages the quality the work is considered goes up dramatically.

The dramatic majority of novels that are above or close to 1000 out shine the majority of the novels (even acclaimed) that are below 500. 1984, Animal Farm, Catcher in the Rye? Children's books we read in high school because they were short; it's not a snobbery manner that you read long books but because you love them. The author loved them and the publisher loved them. A cheesy, half short story, novel just doesn't cut it.

blacbird · Jun 15, 2009

I tried reading A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth. Three or four times. I really really really did. Couldn't get past about page twelve. If it had been 100 pages, instead of 1000, I still wouldn't have finished it.

My wife adored every bloody page of it.

caw

virtue_summer · Jun 16, 2009

I don't care so much about how long it is. I care about how long it seems. I've read long books that intrigued me so much I hardly noticed so many pages were flying by. And I've started reading short books that were so mind numbing I couldn't get past page five. Judging a book's quality based on its length? That's ridiculous. Yes there are a lot of badly written epics. There are just as many badly written shorter books. In fact I'd say there are more shorter ones that are badly written simply because there are more shorter ones in the first place. Actually I would posit that the success of series and trilogies shows that a number of readers enjoy lengthy stories. They're just daunted sometimes when it appears all at once.

SharkGelli · Jun 16, 2009

I wonder if we're looking at this the wrong way. Consider this: long novels are almost guaranteed to be good.

If readers don't have much time to read books, then certainly editors and agents have even less time. Because editors and agents have less time to read books, they'll be more selective about what they read, meaning that they'll either read books that are short, or books that are obviously good. If an incredibly lengthy novel isn't obviously good, I'd guess that the editors and agents would be more willing to read a more manageable novel instead.

Granted, this is speculation and I know disgustingly little about what editors and agents actually do, but it's an idea.

megan_d · Jun 16, 2009

I too wish there were more long novels. The title, the cover art, the authors name, forget all that. It's a name thick spine that makes me pull a book of the shelf for a closer look.

blacbird · Jun 16, 2009

SharkGelli said:
Consider this: long novels are almost guaranteed to be good.

You buy shamwows, don't you?

caw

Alitriona · Jun 16, 2009

All the books I've read so far this year bar two have been part a series, each had three or more books and still it was never enough. I have no problem picking up a book that is over 1,000 pages,many people don't but publishers don't print enough of them.

ccv707 · Jun 16, 2009

There have been great 1000 page novels written, some being considered the greatest novels ever written. Just the same, there have been absolutely horrible 1000 page pieces of crap. If it's good, then so be it. If the story calls for it, then so be it. Like most people will say, a story should be as long as it needs to be. No more, no less.

BTW, Shogun is one of my favorite books of all time. I loved every page of it, though it started a little slow. Read the whole thing cover to cover in just under four days. One of the true epics of twentieth century literature.

Lisa Cox · Jun 16, 2009

A quality of a book has nothing to do with the length. There are abysmal 75k books and incredible 1000k epics, and vice versa. I'm just as likely to pick up a long book from the shelf as I am a short one. If the back cover hooks me and the first few pages are well-written, I'm sold.

...but then, I'm a book-whore. I'll buy any book that gives me that metaphorical sultry smirk.

KTC · Jun 16, 2009

I shy away from long books. I read Stephen King's The Stand a year or so ago...and it took me forever. I am the world's slowest reader. I have documented evidence to prove it. I'm in the Guinness Records. My son read faster than me when he was 9. I read every word...even 'the' and 'and'...I don't know how to glance over a page and absorb it all. If I'm going to read a large book I need to make a major commitment. I have to really want to read it. Otherwise, it would take up too much of my reading time (a month or sometimes more).

JJ Cooper · Jun 16, 2009

We live in a fast paced world. I figure readers have limited time time to put aside in their hectic shedules to have a go at a book. Keep it short, concise and let the reader use their imagination over the limited time they have.

JJ

megan_d · Jun 16, 2009

KTC makes a good point. I'm not the fastest reader, but I am young and childless with a fairly stress free job, which equals plenty of free time to devote to reading (and writing of course). If I had limited time to read I'd be much more picky of my book choices. But having said that, I still think I'd go for the epic long ones.

Kurtz · Jun 16, 2009

If you can't tell your story in less than a 300 pages you are a bad writer.

Lisa Cox · Jun 16, 2009

If you can't tell your story in less than a 300 pages you are a bad writer.

Uh... really? I'm going to go with the safe assumption that your statement there is sarcasm. o.0

KTC · Jun 16, 2009

Kurtz said:
If you can't tell your story in less than a 300 pages you are a bad writer.

That's not true. There are some fantastically written stories that need more than 300 pages. I really hope you're kidding with this kind of a blanket statement (though I see no smilies to suggest humor).

raburrell · Jun 16, 2009

Kurtz said:
If you can't tell your story in less than a 300 pages you are a bad writer.

M'kay dude... We'll inform Tolstoy for you...

JJ Cooper · Jun 16, 2009

I come in at 320 odd, but the publisher used bigger font than I'd agreed to.

JJ

KTC · Jun 16, 2009

JJ Cooper said:
I come in at 320 odd, but the publisher used bigger font than I'd agreed to.

JJ

Well, I'll read the first 299 pages. The rest is superfluous. (-;

Life's too short for thousand-page novels

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