Would You Do This? Have You Ever?

[ichkeria]

One of my more perverse habits is occasionally to go to the review section on Amazon of a book I’ve just particularly enjoyed, to read the one-star reviews!
Yes, I know …
There was one I read recently of a long novel in which the reviewer admitted to having “skipped pages”
I was flabbergasted. I can understand admbwndining ship. Maybe even the odd fast-forward with a mind to return, tho it’s something I’ve never done.
So the question is: would you? Could you? Have you ever?
Missed a bit of a novel (not a reference work of course) and carried on?

[Khandro]

One for you jim, but don't skip:
Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

[Khandro]

Reviewed;
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n19/john-whitfield/replication-crisis

[jim360]

Thanks, Khandro. If you want to continue discussing the topics raised by that book, maybe start a separate thread, though.

[AuntPG]

Only at School. We had to read 'Of mice and men' as one of the books for GCE English Literature and as a 16-year-old I could not get into it. I read chapter one and the last chapter then crammed on the revision notes -managed to get an incredible 'B' lol!

[Hagen]

No, I've never skipped sections of a novel but I do share your perverse pleasure in reading one-star reviews of books I like. There are some gems like "this auther should of learned to write proply" and even "did not read".

I have given up using Amazon reviews for the intended purpose for any book that involves suspense or mystery. There's always some oaf who, unsignalled, writes something like "I didn't expect the brother would turn out to be the killer." Now that Amazon review don't carry comments, you can't take people to task for spoilers any more. Grrr.

[Khandro]

jm; //Thanks, Khandro. If you want to continue discussing the topics raised by that book, maybe start a separate thread, though.//

I could try, but I fear it might get closed down, as is frequently happening in the science section lately.

[jim360]

I'll leave it to your imagination why the thread you had in mind got closed down, although I'll give you a hint: it wasn't because you were asking questions about scientific methodology.

[Khandro]

Re. the OP, I have recently skipped through many pages of
Proust's, 'À la Recherche du temps Perdu', (The Way by Swann's) which has to be the most over rated, over hyped, novel of the 20th century.

The accolades are endless, but I found good old Germaine Greer's summing up the best, "The only time lost, will be yours wasted reading it".

[jno]

I fast forward through films on occasion. But at least you can still see what's happening, they just do whatever it is faster, so it's not quite the same as skipping pages in a book - more like speed-reading.

[bednobs]

i am a bit like joey in friends - sometimes the action or sadness in a book gets too much for me and i'd like to put it in the freezer!
On some occasions i might skip the sad bits.
I ALWAYS read the end after the first chapter or two

[ichkeria]

I couldn't even fastforward through a film jno: I have to see every bit - at the right speed :-)
Just like I must read every page of the book.
The book I was reading that review of was Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks, and I did wonder if the bits skipped (before giving up entirely) were a few of the treatises on mental health and the brain by the characters. But I suppose even odder were the claims that the "nothing much happens" (well a world war breaks out near the end, after the main characters have got grown up, got married, travelled half the world, had kids, affairs, etc etc, but I suppose apart from that the Romans haven't done much for the plot) and "the characters are cardboard"
But everyone as I said before is different and entitled to their opinions.

[Khandro]

In my vocabulary 'skipping' doesn't mean ignoring pages completely, it means speed reading through them, the process of scanning top to bottom of a page looking at the centre, this way you can ascertain the narrative of a long description or dialogue without getting bogged down in too much detail.
Once the writer's style is gathered, it becomes easier to do, but if a book becomes too boring, better fold it & start something better.
I stuck with Proust, because it's considered by many to be such a holy grail of French literature.

[Untitled]

some books really do need it!!

I was reading 'Mysteries of Udolpho' by Anne Radcliffe recently and there are lots of places where the main character stops to compose a long and very boring poem about how lovely the sky is looking or how impressive the mountain she is on looks...

needless to say, after the first four or five I started to skip them every time I saw them!!

[Untitled]

I did the same with 'Lord of the Rings'... another dreary song, oh dear...

[ichkeria]

“Skipping” means “missing out entirely”
That’s what I’m taking about